
Class LJfy^L . 

Book o y* 

Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



School Management 



A TEXT-BOOK 

FOR COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOLS 

AND NORMAL SCHOOLS 



BY 

ALBERT SALISBURY 

PRESIDENT OP THE WHITEWATER NORMAL SCHOOL 
AUTHOR OP "THE THEORY OF TEACHING", ETC. 



CHICAGO 
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY 



\\ 



&x 



Copyright 1911 

BY 

ALBERT SALISBURY 



CCI.A280248 



PREFACE 

If any apology is thought to be due for adding 
to the number of books on School Management now 
in print, it may perhaps be found in the statement 
that this is the latest one, and possibly the further 
fact that it represents the fruits of a lifetime spent 
in the schools and in the training of teachers. 
School conditions have greatly changed in recent 
years, and books on s.chool economy which were 
excellent twenty years ago are now antiquated. 

Much more is now demanded of teachers than 
formerly. The growing tendency to devolve upon 
the school responsibilities which were once recog- 
nized as duties of the home has greatly changed the 
relationship of the teacher to his charge. And the 
progress of sanitary science together with the move- 
ment just mentioned has tended to make him a 
more important and responsible personage than ever 
before. He has, in fact, become an official of the 
state, with larger functions and greater need for 
intelligence concerning those functions than the old- 
time pedagogue. 

"While endeavoring to recognize this newer con- 
ception of the teacher 's office, and the greater bur- 
dens which it imposes, it has been the desire of the 
author to make a small book rather than a bulky 

3 



4 PREFACE 

one; and there has been a resolute purpose to ex- 
clude padding and time-honored commonplace. 

The work has not been written throughout on the 
same scale in the matter of compactness. Many of 
its paragraphs are texts, rather than discussions, the 
purpose being to leave room for the instructor to 
exercise his proper functions by way of amplifica- 
tion, even to the point of making his pupils do a part 
in supplementing the text. In other cases, as in the 
chapter on Moral Training, where amplification by 
the teacher might be more difficult, a more complete 
treatment of topics has been attempted ; though there 
has been no attempt at exhaustiveness. The book is 
intended to serve the needs of young teachers and 
those in preparation for the work, and clearness has 
been aimed at rather than profundity. 

A word needs to be said perhaps concerning the 
use of the personal pronoun as regards its gender. 
While due respect has been paid, in the majority of 
instances, to the grammatical canon requiring the 
use of the masculine form where both sexes are con- 
sidered, there has been intentional deviation from it, 
with seeming inconsistency possibly, in many cases, 
the feminine form being freely used in connections 
where it seemed more appropriate to the conditions 
under discussion. The critical reader will also find 
some repetitions, the same thought, in perhaps the 
same words, being introduced in different connec- 
tions. This is not accidental, neither is it unpeda- 
gogical. 

The writer wishes to acknowledge his obligation 



PKEFACE 5 

to Prof. George C. Shutts for judicious counsel 
throughout the work, to Prof. W. S. Watson for 
helpful criticism on those chapters relating to 
hygiene and sanitation, and to Walter E. Larson, 
State Inspector of Rural Schools, for many valuable 
suggestions. A. S. 

Whitewater, Wis., November, 1910. 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introductory 9 

II. The Physical Environment 14 

III. Heating and Ventilation 30 

IV. General Sanitation 44 

V. The Hygiene of the Sense Organs 54 

VI. The Teacher 64 

VII. The Teacher in His Eelations 74 

VIII. The Teacher and His Time 85 

IX. The First Day of School 93 

X. The Program 99 

XL Incentives to Study 107 

XII. Moral Training 118 

XIII. Elements of Moral Character Culti- 

vated by the School 131 

XIV. Rules and Punishments 145 

XV. Class Management 158 

XVI. Examinations and Promotions 182 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

For the intelligent prosecution of any enterprise or 
calling, two kinds of knowledge are necessary, theoret- 
ical and practical. 

Theoretical knowledge may be defined as knowledge 
of what ought to be done and the reasons why. No 
great and permanent success is possible without some 
understanding of the laws and natural conditions which 
determine the outcome of the enterprise, that is, the 
principles, or theory, of the business. 

By practical knowledge is meant familiarity with the 
actual processes of the undertaking, the knowledge how 
to do it, how to apply effort. This is acquired only by 
personal experience, though this experience may be 
directed by instruction. 

In some cases, this practical knowledge is acquired 
first, and often through expensive failures. The story 
is told of a great English oculist, that when compli- 
mented on his skill in eye-surgery he answered sadly, 
"Yes, but it has cost a whole bushel of eyes/' If he 
had known, at the first, the whole theory of the eye, 
most of that bushel of eyes need not have been sacrificed. 

Why Study School Management? — The manage- 
ment of a school is an important enterprise, in which 



10 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

the consequences of failure fall heavily upon the teacher 
but far more heavily upon the pupils, as victims of 
the failure. Hence a study of the general principles of 
school management by the prospective teacher is a step 
tending to economy, or the prevention of wasteful mis- 
takes. Even in a factory, working upon inert materials, 
a knowledge of the principles of mechanics is essential 
to success; but when the material on which the effort 
is expended is spirit instead of matter, and the product 
is life itself, the need of wisdom, in every sense of the 
word, is immensely increased. 

What is a School?— We are to study the theory 
and practice of school management. First, then, what 
is a school? Is it a group of children or a place? It 
is both, and more. Let this be our definition : A school 
is an institution of society, supplementary to the home, 
for the training of children. 

We must lay stress upon the fact that the school is 
a supplement to the home. But why is such a sup- 
plementary institution necessary? It is necessary be- 
cause parents, as a rule, are not fully able to give their 
children the training that is needful to lead them into 
completeness of life. They usually lack: 

(1) Time; they are too deeply absorbed in the cares 
of their daily occupation or in their ambitions, social 
or otherwise. 

(2) Knowledge and skill; they have not themselves 
had the training which they wish their children to 
have, and so are not able to communicate it. 

(3) Wisdom, as to end and means. 



INTKODUCTOBY H 

Most parents, unfortunately, have no true or ade- 
quate conception of what a child really needs and is 
entitled to in the way of training for life in civilized 
society. The education of children is, in short, a com- 
plex and difficult process of great importance not only 
to the child . but to society at large, and demands a 
special preparation on the part of those who carry it on 
to completion. 

What Parents Delegate to the School. — What, 

then, do parents turn over to the school, as requiring 
more time, knowledge, and wisdom than they them- 
selves possess ? The first thing which will occur to most 
minds is instruction in look 'knowledge, and this is 
indeed made the basis of most school work; but it is 
by no means the whole duty of the teacher. The home 
turns over to the school much of the needed training 
in manners, speech, and morals. A certain woman 
known to the writer had a young son who had great 
need of home discipline. A neighbor expostulated with 
her for her easy-going neglect of the boy's behavior. 
"You ought", she said, "to teach your boy obedience". 
"Oh", answered the mother, "the school will do that". 
And this woman is only a type of a large class of par- 
ents who are more and more turning off on the school 
that discipline which was once thought to be the special 
province of the home. The teacher is coming to stand 
in loco parentis in a very comprehensive 'sense. This 
comes about, in a measure, from the increasing com- 
plexity of our social life and the growing tendency to 
ease and luxury. 



12 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

But, aside from this tendency of parents to delegate 
their responsibilities to the teacher, it is the unques- 
tioned province of the school to inculcate ideals, to 
inspire worthy interests, and make not only possible but 
actual a wider and higher vision of the meaning and 
value of life. In the familiar phraseology, "complete 
living" and "character building" are the ends of edu- 
cation towards which the school must supplement the 
beginnings, whatsoever they may be, of the home. 

The Essential Elements of a School. — What, now, 
is necessary to constitute a school? What are its essen- 
tial elements? 

(1) A place in which to conduct its activities. 

(2) A teacher j or teachers, to stimulate and control 
its activities towards their proper result. 

(3) Some one to he taught and educated, pupils of 
some sort. 

Every one is now familiar with President Garfield's 
striking remark that a log with Mark Hopkins on one 
end and a receptive pupil on the other would constitute 
a school. And so it would; but that would be a school 
reduced to its lowest terms, and not much "manage- 
ment" would be necessary. 

What is School Management? — Management is the 
act or art of control towards a desired result. School 
management, then, is the direction and control of school 
activities towards the true ends of education. Does 
this include instruction? No, not instruction itself, 
but the conditions which favor successful instruction. 
One of these conditions is financial support, but in 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

public schools this responsibility is removed from the 
teacher. 

School management, however, does include all prac- 
ticable control of the physical environment and condi- 
tions of the school ; hence school hygiene may properly 
be regarded as subsidiary to school management. Fur- 
thermore, school management has to deal not only with 
the bodies of the pupils but also with their wills. It 
must aim to secure the right mental attitudes towards 
all the activities and duties of the school. We may 
lead the horse to the watering trough, we may provide 
the water, but there must be a thirst before the horse 
will drink. School management, in its fullest sense, 
must aim to increase, or at least not destroy, the mental 
thirst. 

We may, therefore, state the ends of school manage- 
ment as: 

(1) To provide favorable conditions for instruction, 
to make it possible. 

(2) To economize time and effort on the part of 
both teacher and pupil, by rightly shaping the mechanics 
of the school. 

(3) To produce a right disposition towards instruc- 
tion, and so make control more easy and effective. 

(4) To produce in the school a social environment 
which will tend to establish those habits and dispositions 
which constitute moral character. 

These aims are all very comprehensive and cover, in 
each case, a great variety of detail, calling for large 
intelligence and great alertness on the part of teachers 
and superintendents. 



CHAPTEE II 

THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 

We have seen that the first factor of a school is a 
place in which to conduct it. While this may be very- 
simple and unobtrusive, just as a place of worship may 
be, yet the aims of the school will be best served by such 
an outlay of money and ingenuity as will remove all 
physical limitations and hindrances from the educa- 
tional process. As physical vigor and well-being is not 
only infinitely important in itself, but is also the in- 
dispensable condition of normal mental activity, every 
accessory which has a bearing upon the general health 
or the normal functioning of the bodily organs of those 
under instruction should be understood and duly con- 
sidered by all who are in any way responsible for the 
efficiency and success of the school. 

The School Site. — The first matter for considera- 
tion in this connection is the location of the school 
building. What are the most important requisites of 
the school site ? 

(1) The first requirement is that it shall be sanitary. 
The drainage should be good, and it should not be in 
proximity to a swamp or any other source of noxious 
gases or evil odors. 

(2) It should be accessible and reasonably central to 

14 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIKONMENT 15 

the school population served, and not away at one edge 
of the district. 

(3) It should be commodious. The land which it 
comprises should be measured by acres and not by square 
feet. There is no worse parsimony than that displayed 
in depriving any school, from kindergarten to high 
school, of ample playgrounds. 

(4) It should be as retired and quiet as practicable. 
That is, it should not be located, in towns, near the 
business center nor near railroad tracks or noisy fac- 
tories. The question of beauty in the site and its sur- 
roundings should not be ignored. A gentle acclivity, 
or "rise of ground", is highly desirable; and the possi- 
bility of ornamentation is an important requisite. 

Moral considerations, also, should never be forgotten. 
The school should not be located in proximity to saloons 
or haunts of vice. If these, at a later time, invade the 
vicinity of the school, the discovery of some remedy or 
means of prevention ought to be the active concern of 
every one interested in the preservation of impressible 
children from contaminating sights and sounds. The 
presence of candy shops in the vicinity of the school is 
also to be deprecated. 

Common Mistakes. — Serious and reprehensible 
mistakes are often made, especially in small cities, in 
the location of school buildings. Who has not seen the 
High School located away at one side of the town, com- 
pelling innumerable miles of useless travel on the part 
of pupils; or on a steep hilltop, compelling the lifting 
of all the avoirdupois of the school twice a day to a 



16 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

needless height? Who has not seen a building con- 
taining hundreds of children permanently located close 
beside a railroad track, or even a busy switching-yard? 
And who has not seen an expensive high school building 
placed almost flush with the sidewalk, thus precluding 
forever all possibility of play grounds, lawn, trees, or 
flower beds, exhibiting a stinginess of land little less 
than criminal in its shortsightedness? 

Improvement of the School Site. — When the site 
has been wisely chosen, the next consideration is that 
of its proper improvement. The old time country school 
furnished a striking illustration of "how not to do it". 
Located on perhaps half an acre of cheap land, the first 
step was to cut down all the trees, and often that was 
the last step also, the site being left without fence, well, 
or other improvement. In an earlier day, cattle and 
hogs ran at large, and often found the school site a 
favorite grazing ground. Whittier's familiar couplet, 

"Still stands the school-house by the road, 
A ragged beggar sunning", 

was only a picture of familiar fact, a fact not wholly 
unknown at the present day. 

Whether the school lot should be fenced or not de- 
pends on circumstances. In Great Britain, it is usually 
surrounded by a high wall, with iron gates. But the 
school should always have its own water supply. If a 
well, it should be ready for use as soon as the school- 
house is ready. 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 17 

A Model Country School Site. — The writer has 
seen a country site which comprises perhaps two acres 
of land. On it are planted suitable shade trees. At 
one side is a school garden, planted and tended by the 
pupils. At the rear, is outdoor athletic apparatus, and 
good outbuildings. The fuel supply, as coal is burned, 
is kept in the basement. The lawn is cut with a lawn- 
mower; and the whole premises are beautiful to the eye 
and. educational in their effect. Why should not this 
model be duplicated in almost any school site? 

Outbuildings. — An absolutely vital matter is the 
provision and proper location of outbuildings. The fol- 
lowing extract from the statutes of the state of Wis- 
consin forms the basis of a circular of instruction issued 
by the State Department of Education to all district 
officers, viz. : 

Chapter 232, Laws of 1907. 

Section 435a. It shall be the duty of each school 
district board, or, in towns under the township 
system, the town board of school directors, to pro- 
vide at least two suitable and convenient outhouses 
or water-closets for each of the schoolhouses under 
its control. Said outhouses or water-closets shall be 
entirely separated each from the other and shall 
have separate means of access. The boys' outhouse 
shall be provided with suitable urinals. Said out- 
houses and said water-closets, if detached from the 
schoolhouse, shall be placed at least thirty feet apart 
and~separated by a substantial close fence not less 
than seven feet in height, and where placed on 
opposite sides of the school grounds shall be suit- 
ably screened from view. The board of education 



18 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

shall have said outhouses and water-closets kept in h 
clean and wholesome condition. 

The Schoolhouse. 

(1) School Architecture, Past and Present. In the 
past, far too little attention was given to the true prin- 
ciples of schoolhouse construction; in fact, it was not 
recognized that any such principles existed. Accident 
and caprice have generally ruled in this matter. In 
city schools, the planning of schoolhouses has been 
turned over to architects, who had little knowledge of 
or interest in the proper conditions of school work, and 
were more concerned about architectural effect than edu- 
cational efficiency. In recent years, however, there has 
arisen a class of architects who have given special atten- 
tion to the construction of school buildings and have 
wrought a great improvement in the suitability of their 
structures for the practical purposes of education. In 
other words, the science of schoolhouse construction has 
begun to receive adequate attention; though many seri- 
ous failures still mark the experimental stage of school 
architecture. 

(2) The Country Schoolhouse. The country school- 
house was long thought beneath the notice of architects. 
Its needs were, it was thought, so few and simple that 
any carpenter could put up a box adequate to the needs 
of a country school, though the stupidity sometimes 
exhibited in the interior arrangement had in it at least 
some element of originality. But here, too, a change 
is taking place. State Departments of Public Instruc- 
tion have made a study of rural school architecture, and 
in some states bulletins have been issued giving approved 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 19 

plans for model schoolhouses. It would be well if every 
country teacher were to make himself acquainted with 
some of these plans, and so be qualified to furnish in- 
formation and suggestions to school boards whenever 
opportunity offered itself. The country schoolhouse 
ought to be something more than a hollow parallele- 
piped. 

(3) The Schoolroom. The plan of any school build- 
ing as a whole must be determined, in part at least, by 
the principles which should govern each and every 
schoolroom. Let us, therefore, consider what these 
requirements are. 

It is now an accepted principle of school manage- 
ment that no teacher should be charged with the instruc- 
tion and control of more than forty pupils. We may 
assume, then, that each separate schoolroom should be 
planned for the accommodation of about that number 
of children, certainly never more than fifty. Accepting 
this limitation, along with others, the following speci- 
fications will follow : 

(a) Shape. In form, the schoolroom should not be 
square but oblong, with the teacher's desk placed at 
one end. This will favor the proper lighting of the 
room and will bring the pupils better within the view 
of the teacher. 

(b) Size. For a school of, say, forty-two pupils, a 
room 24 by 30 feet will serve the purpose, though 25 
by 32 feet is perhaps preferable. The height of the 
ceiling should be somewhat greater than in dwellings, 
though never higher than 15 feet. Wherever, for any 
reason, more than forty or fifty pupils are to be seated 



20 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

in the same room, the lateral dimensions should be cor- 
respondingly greater. It is considered by the best 
authorities that at least 15 square feet of floor space 
should be provided for each pupil, and 200 cubic feet 
of air space. 

(4) Lighting . 

(a) The Position of Windows. The first considera- 
tion in connection with the lighting of schoolrooms is 
that of the position of the windows, as determining the 
direction from which the light rays shall reach the 
pupil. Careful scientific studies of this question have 
led to the conclusion that windows should be placed in 
not more than two sides of the room. There are, in 
fact, some strong reasons in favor of what is called 
unilateral lighting, and this is probably best where the 
room is not too wide and the window space adequate. 
If light is taken from one side only, that should be at 
the left of the pupil as he sits; so that the shadow of 
his hand in writing shall not fall upon his paper. If 
light is taken from two sides, they should be contiguous, 
the left and rear. No lighting should be permitted 
which will make distinct shadows on the pupil's book 
when studying or writing. Double shadows from cross 
lights are especially injurious. Only in large assembly 
rooms should light be admitted from two opposite sides ; 
and pupils should never be allowed to sit facing windows. 
It is important that light should fall from above as 
much as possible. The windows should therefore extend 
upwards to within six or eight inches of the ceiling, and 
should not be rounded or arched at the top, as that 
cuts off some of the best light. The window sills should 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 21 

be from three to four feet above the floor, high enough 
so that pupils will not be able to see outside objects 
while sitting. 

(b) The Amount of Window Space. Another impor- 
tant consideration is that of the quantity of light neces- 
sary, and so of the amount of window space to be pro- 
vided. This matter, also, has received much careful 
investigation. The best authorities are agreed that the 
amount of window space in a room should equal from 
one-sixth to one-fourth of the floor space. The windows 
should be wide and the piers or mullions between them 
should be narrow. 

(c) Window Shades. The matter of proper shading 
for the windows is of no less importance than their 
size and position, and the common negligence and igno- 
rance with reference to it are reprehensible in the 
extreme. 

The shades are usually ill chosen and wrongly hung. 

The shades should be of a durable material that will 
not easily crack or tear. The material known as "Bren- 
lin" is well adapted to meet these requirements. They 
should not be too opaque, and should be mounted, of 
course, on spring rollers. The color should be a light 
shade of green or buff, preferably the former. 

Since light from the lower part of the window falls 
on the floor, and the light should reach the pupil's book 
or paper from above, the rollers should be placed near 
the bottom of the window instead of the top, as is 
usually done, so that the shade shall pull up from the 
bottom. In other words, the unshaded portion of the 
window should be at the top instead of the bottom. A 



22 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

device now coming into use known as a "Shade Ad- 
juster" enables the teacher to shade any part of the 
window and to change the adjustment readily. To the 
bottom bar of every shade a cord should be attached, 
long enough to be easily reached in any position of the 
shade, and this should be promptly renewed whenever 
broken. This may seem a minor matter but it is not 
unimportant. The teacher should never need to climb 
a chair to reach the curtain. 

But the provision of suitable shades, properly hung, 
is only the first step. The shades should be continually 
readjusted to suit the changing conditions of the sun. 
It is the teacher's duty to form the habit of being alert 
and attentive to these conditions, taking account of 
dark days and bright, and of the time of day. There 
is danger of neglect through absorption and oblivious- 
ness. Two cautions should be particularly observed: 
(1) Never let the direct rays of the sun fall on a desk 
occupied by a pupil, and (2) always admit the light 
from above and not on a level with the pupils' eyes. 

(5) Heating and Ventilation. This subject is so im- 
portant as to require a separate chapter, following, which 
see. 

(6) Equipment and Decoration of the Schoolroom. 

(a) The Walls. The walls should be smoothly fin- 
ished, as a rough surface catches dust and grime. They 
should then be tinted in a subdued tint, a light shade 
of green or greenish grey being preferable. All strong, 
pronounced colors should be eschewed, especially red 
and dark colors. The ceiling should be a lighter tint 
than the side walls. If the room is not well lighted 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 23 

the ceiling would better be plain white. As to the tint- 
ing material, kalsomine or alabastine will do, but must 
be renewed from time to time and can not be washed. 
For that reason, a surface of oil paint over a sizing coat 
is preferable, but this should be stippled over to prevent 
glare. The use of wall paper in schoolrooms can not be 
approved under any circumstances. It is neither dur- 
able, sanitary, nor appropriate. 

(b) Blackboards. A great variety of materials is now 
used for the construction of blackboards. Natural slate 
is the most expensive but has the merit of permanency, 
not requiring annual renovation. An "artificial slate", 
now on the market, has also the quality of permanency, 
with the added advantage of having no seams, but a 
continuous smooth surface. Then, there are the "hylo- 
plate" board and slated cloth and even slated paper, any 
of which may be useful under certain conditions. Very 
commonly the board is made by the application of liquid 
slating to the plastered wall. In this case, the surface 
needs to be renewed by the annual application of a fresh 
coat of the slating, which is an inconvenience even 
greater in the country than in cities, where qualified 
workmen are more easily found. Where this kind of 
board is adopted, it is best to cover the wall with a thick- 
ness of heavy Manila paper of the requisite width, on 
which the slating may be applied, with a proper "sizing". 
This will prevent possible crumbling or pitting of the 
plaster wall. 

A blackboard should be, as a rule, four feet wide, with 
the bottom edge not more than two and one-half feet 
from the floor. For primary grades, the height should 



24 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

not exceed twenty-six inches. A chalk-trough covered 
with wire netting should be provided at the bottom to 
receive the dust. The most pleasing color for a black- 
board is an olive green, but slating of this color is not 
always easily found. The ordinary green slating is 
hardly preferable to the dead black of natural slate. 

The best erasers are made of ribs of felt, open at the 
end, with the ribs not too close together but open enough 
to let the chalk dust run out between them. Many 
"noiseless" erasers are failures from neglect of this point, 
and only serve to mop the chalk around on the board. 

(c) Desks and Seats. The first consideration in the 
furnishing of a schoolroom is that of the proper size, 
style, and placing of desks and seats. Size is, of course, 
determined by the age of the pupils to be accommodated. 
The ordinary American school desks are made in six 
sizes, No. 6 being designed for children in the first 
grade, six or seven years of age, and NTo. 1 for pupils 
in the eighth grade and high school. Of late, however, 
"adjustable" desks are much favored. These are made 
in only three sizes, the adjustable feature providing for 
individual variations in size within these limits. Such 
desks are much to be preferred for hygienic reasons, 
especially for young children, but have the disadvantage 
of being somewhat higher in cost. There is the further 
drawback that teachers are apt to be negligent in the 
matter of adjusting or readusting the desks and seats 
to the needs of changing occupants. 

Another question to be settled in the selection of new 
desks has reference to the character of the seats. The 
more common style at present ig that of folding seats, 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 25 

attached to the desk just behind the pupil. This style 
of seat has certain advantages, but there is something 
to be said in favor of separate "chairs", fastened to the 
floor but having no contact with the desks. These, 
then, are the two questions to be decided : Shall we have 
folding seats or chairs? And shall we have adjustable 
desks and seats or not ? 

The next consideration is that of the proper placing 
of the desks in the room. They should be placed in 
rows the long way of the room, with aisles between not 
less than eighteen inches in width, or twenty inches for 
the larger sizes. For a room of forty pupils, five rows 
of single desks, eight in a row, would be a good arrange- 
ment. If the room is, unfortunately, square or nearly so, 
six rows, seven in a row, would best fit the conditions. 
It is a serious mistake, though not uncommon, to place 
desks of different sizes in the same row. Each row 
should be of the same size throughout. There is a fur- 
ther question as to the desirability of "recitation seats", 
that is, settees in the front part of the room to which 
pupils are called for class exercises. Latter day prac- 
tice seems to favor the hearing of lessons with the pupils 
in their regular seats. This plan has its advantages in 
cases where written work is to be taken up and does 
away with the obstruction of settees crossing the aisles 
in front. But where the grade, or class, is large there 
is danger that the teacher will be too far removed from 
the pupils. The teacher should come into as close rap- 
port with the children as possible, and this does not 
permit physical remoteness. 

(d) Other Equipment. In the way of further equip- 



26 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

ment, there should be, of course, a suitable teacher's 
desk, with drawers, and a rail about the top for the 
support of books. There should be a set of wall maps 
in spring-roller cases, and a proper rack, or receptacle 
for holding them when not in use, for they should never 
be stood on end, as is so often and untidily done. These 
maps should not be kept exposed on the walls of the 
room, but should be unrolled only when in actual use. 
Sunlight, dust, and flies are great enemies to maps; 
moreover, "familiarity breeds contempt" here as in other 
cases. 

There should be a suitable case for the school library 
with an effective lock. If possible, there should be a 
reading table, conveniently placed, at which the diction- 
ary and other reference books can be consulted. The 
selection of books for the school library is an important 
matter; it should be made under competent advice. 

Mention has already been made of the importance of 
a proper water supply for every school. If drinking 
water is kept in the schoolroom some better receptacle 
should be provided than the ordinary pail, open to dust 
and germs. A closed tank or "cooler" should be fur- 
nished where running water, in pipes, is impracticable. 
In city schools, from this time forth, the "bubble", or 
sanitary drinking fountain, should displace all other 
devices for the quenching of school thirst. 

(e) Decoration. The aesthetic aspects of the school- 
room are of great importance educationally. School 
children should never be confined, day after day, in the 
presence of what is coarse, untidy, or unbeautiful. 
Dingy walls, defaced furniture or woodwork, grotesque 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIEONMENT 27 

or vulgar pictures or placards must have a vulgarizing 
effect on the taste and mental atmosphere of pupils. 
The use of advertising cards of any sort, of cheap 
chromos, and of anything faded or discolored should be 
religiously avoided. 

The writer remembers to have seen in a high school 
room, in a fairly intelligent community, a framed pic- 
ture (?) on the walls, put forth originally as a seeds- 
man's advertisement, in which the features of a highly 
colored human (?) face were made up of garden vege- 
tables, a carrot for the nose, etc. And there this mon- 
strosity had hung for years until faded and grimy, as, 
forsooth, a schoolroom decoration. What that argued 
for the taste and sense of the teachers need not be en- 
larged upon here. The national flag should not be used 
as a wall decoration. It spoils other decoration, and is 
not in its proper place on the walls of a room. It should 
be used only on special occasions. 

The first step in the direction of school aesthetics is, 
it need hardly be said, cleanness, clean walls, clean floors, 
clean windows, clean furniture. Others are (1) tinted 
walls; (2) suitable and properly mounted window 
shades, and (3) well chosen pictures. 

Comment has already been made on the proper tinting 
of walls. It may be added here that if the walls are 
treated with oil-paint, the surface should be stippled to 
prevent a glary effect. The most common mistake in 
the matter of pictures consists in the overloading, clut- 
tering up, of the walls with a profusion, and confusion, 
of small pictures and bric-a-brac. A few good-sized, 
framed pictures by artists of note, and having a real 



28 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

educational value, constitute the most effective and edu- 
cative decoration. The selection of school pictures is 
an important and responsible service and should not be 
trusted to ignorance or caprice. 

Any teacher wishing to give a little intelligent study 
to this matter of school pictures and their selection would 
do well to secure a copy of "The School Beautiful", a 
most admirable pamphlet, issued by the Wisconsin De- 
partment of Public Instruction in 1907. In this Bul- 
letin will also be found valuable suggestions in all the 
lines, or departments, of school beautification, including 
outdoor decoration. 

From it the following quotations are extracted as per- 
tinent and helpful : 

"The purpose of pictures in the schoolroom is two- 
fold; first, to decorate the bare and silent walls, and, 
second, to direct the child's taste and sympathy toward 
the beautiful. A third but much less significant pur- 
pose is to familiarize the pupil with recognized works 
of art and methods of expression in art. 

"Every schoolroom should have at least one picture 
of artistic merit. If means permit, it is well to have 
more, but it is a great mistake to have too many. 

* # * * * * * * 

"Select pictures having a human interest. Pictures 
of animals and of children always appeal to the little 
folks. Whatever the subject, let it be one which the 
child will be able to comprehend through experience or 

knowledge common to children of his age. 

* * * * * * * * 

"Select colored pictures if it is possible for you to 
obtain those which are true works of art. They are more 
decorative as a rule and are more appreciated by the 
child. 



THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 09 

"Be very careful, however, in your selection. 

* * * * * * 5is * 

"Select bright, sunshiny or at least moderately cheer- 
ful subjects. Children are greatly influenced by sub- 
jects of pictures and sadness conies soon enough. It 
need not be lugged in. Avoid also subjects which give 
no food for thought and which will soon become tire- 
some. 

"Take into consideration the amount of wall space 
available and the size of the room, so that you Avill buy 
pictures neither too large nor too small. A very small 
picture in a very large room is lost. A very large picture 
in a very small room looks out of place." 



CHAPTEE III 

HEATING AND VENTILATION 

The bodily comfort and safety of the pupil confined 
in a schoolroom during several hours of each day, mostly 
in a sitting posture, and greatly restricted in his move- 
ments, is a matter of, literally, vital importance. Neg- 
lect of these conditions may result in not only perma- 
nent physical damage, forming a handicap in the battle 
of life, but also in at least partial failure to accomplish 
the intellectual results for which all this outlay of time 
and money is made. 

Heating. — Apart from the question of health, no 

child can apply his mind to study in either extreme of 
temperature, hot or cold. He must be in a state 
of at least tolerable comfort. The fundamental question 
here is, "What is the normal standard temperature 
which will be most conducive to both health and mental 
energy?" But that is, to some extent, a matter of 
habit. In British schools, the standard of schoolroom 
temperature in general use is 56 degrees Fahrenheit, 
though 60 degrees is allowed in the Infant Schools. 
Even at this, many of the children wear short socks and 
go habitually with bare knees. In Germany, much the 
same standard prevails. In this country, on the other 
hand, we carry our custom of overheating our living- 
rooms into the schoolrooms, and the standard most gen- 

30 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 31 

erally accepted is 70 degrees ; though many teachers, es- 
pecially women of sedentary habits, who sit while teach- 
ing, are addicted to a higher temperature still. 

There is little doubt that the health of American chil- 
dren is more or less impaired by the national habit of 
overheating. While we would not think the British 
standard endurable, unquestionably it would be to the 
advantage of our schools if the temperature were kept 
at 65 degrees, or 68 degrees at the utmost. 

Heating Systems. — In city schools, three methods 
of heating are more or less in use ; viz., steam, hot water, 
and hot air, or furnaces. The hot water system, admir- 
able for dwellings, is not well adapted for heating large 
school buildings. Steam heating is preferable in 
schools large enough to command the services of a com- 
petent man in charge of the boilers; but smaller build- 
ings are most economically heated by hot air furnaces. 
The greatest objection to the hot air system lies in the 
fact that the air sent into the rooms has just been in 
contact with surfaces of superheated, often red-hot, cast 
iron, which is believed to vitiate the air. Moreover, the 
furnaces are very likely to leak coal gas, and dust from 
the rooms is apt to find its way into the furnace pipes 
and there be scorched and sent back into the rooms. 
For these reasons, steam heat should be used where 
practicable. In large buildings, it is advisable to com- 
bine direct and indirect radiation, as described later on 
page 38 

In most country schools, the heating apparatus is still 
primitive. In even recent times, nothing better was 



32 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

thought of than the old box-stove, with a stovepipe over 
head the whole length of the room, the result being cold 
floors with very unequal distribution of heat. In some 
however, a furnace in the basement or a jacketed stove 
has now superseded the simple firebox. 

Heat Regulation. — One of the really valuable tri- 
umphs of science in this generation is found in the 
mechanical regulation of temperature in buildings by 
means of thermostats and pneumatic or electric trans- 
mission. The Johnson System of heat regulation is 
the oldest and most widely used. This takes the con- 
trol out of the hands of both teacher and janitor and 
lodges it with forces more reliable than human 
intelligence. 

But in the country or small village school such de- 
vices are not thought to be practicable, and the teacher 
must charge himself with a watchful control of the 
schoolroom temperature. In this, he must allow nothing 
for his own personal habit or peculiarity. The adopted 
standard should be maintained as closely as possible 
throughout the day; and especial care should be taken 
that the room is properly warm at the opening of 
school. 

Ventilation. 

(a) What Ventilation Is. What is meant by venti- 
lation as related to schools and public assemblies? Not 
simply abundance of air or change of air, but change of 
air without disagreeable or injurious change of tempera- 
ture. In order, then, to have satisfactory ventilation, 
there must be movement of air combined with control 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 33 

of temperature ; in other words, the heating and venti- 
lating apparatus must have a close connection with 
each other. This involves the fact that proper ventila- 
tion costs money, which is one reason why we have so 
little of it. Another reason is ignorance as to its im- 
portance and ignorance as to the most practicable means 
of securing it. 

(b) Why Ventilation Costs. Why does ventilation 
cost money? First, because change of air means loss 
of heat which we have been at the cost of producing, 
or, in other words, it involves the heating of larger 
quantities of air; and artificial heat costs money. Sec- 
ondly, the moving of air in rooms requires the applica- 
tion of power in some form, and power costs money. 
Those thrifty people who caulk up their houses in the 
fall and run coal stoves without means of changing 
the air continually, breathing practically the same air 
all winter, are able in spring to boast of small fuel bills, 
though the doctor's bills may be correspondingly large. 

(c) Why Ventilation Is Important. Pure air for 
breathing is absolutely essential to health. Impure air 
poisons the bodily tissues, or, rather, impure air fails 
to properly purify the blood in the lungs, and leaves 
it burdened with the waste products of internal com- 
bustion. What, then, are the sources of this impurity ? 

Atmospheric air consists of a mixture of approxi- 
mately 79 per cent of nitrogen and a little less than 21 
per cent of oxygen with a small admixture of a num- 
ber of other substances, including from three to four 
one-hundredths of one per cent of carbon dioxide, or 
carbonic acid gas. It also contains, or sustains, a vary- 



34 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

ing amount of water vapor, the amount depending on 
climatic conditions. This presence of moisture in the 
air is known as humidity. The oxygen of the air con- 
stitutes its life-giving quality, nitrogen being, in its 
effect on the bodily tissues, comparatively inert. Any 
considerable diminution of the due proportion of oxy- 
gen in the air we breathe becomes a source of danger, 
as also any addition to the air of other substances. 

(d) What Vitiates the Air? First, dust and par- 
ticles of organic matter held in mechanical suspension 
in the air, and often harboring, or consisting of, dis- 
ease germs. The soot and dangerous gases emitted by 
factories, locomotives, and other sources of imperfect 
combustion; the effluvia given off by decaying garbage, 
and from slaughter houses, open cesspools, or stagnant 
water; these and other sources of contamination tend 
in greater or less measure to change the air from the 
means of life to a means of disease and death. 

A second source of vitiation is found, especially in 
connection with evening assemblies, in the abstraction 
of oxygen from the air by the burning of lamps, gas 
jets, etc. The somewhat popular oil-heater, often used 
for warming sitting rooms and even bedrooms, is an 
especially vicious contaminator of air where pure air 
is most needed; though it has not invaded the school- 
room to any extent. 

But, thirdly, the most universal and effective cause 
of vitiation is found in the functioning of the vital 
organism itself. Excretions from the skin, both 
through the sensible and insensible perspiration, espe- 
cially when connected with habits of uncleanliness, 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 35 

infrequent bathing, etc., play a part in the vitiation of 
the contiguous air. Bad teeth and bad digestion con- 
tribute their quota of effete matter; while the victims 
of tuberculosis, incipient or developed, through the 
sputum and also through sneezing and coughing, and 
even ordinary breath, disseminate the deadly germs. 

In respiration, the lungs carry on a continual com- 
merce with the atmosphere, withdrawing from it the 
oxygen necessary for the purification of the blood and 
giving to it in exchange the products of internal com- 
bustion, especially carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas, 
and also the nitrogenous gases. If, by an enforced re- 
breathing of this deteriorated air, this carbon dioxide 
is repeatedly offered to the lungs instead of the needed 
oxygen, already exhausted, the whole purpose of respira- 
tion is thwarted and the blood is literally self -poisoned 
instead of purified. When the air breathed already con- 
tains a little above four per cent of carbon dioxide, it 
refuses to receive any more, and the blood in the lungs 
is unable to unload its waste matter. 

Given, then, a closed room full of children more or 
less unwashed, more or less already the victims of skin 
or other diseases, and all diligently engaged in destroy- 
ing the life-giving quality of the air, and we have a 
concrete example of the need for ventilation. 

The first problem in ventilation is therefore prevent- 
ive, to provide a supply of air which is pure to begin 
with. The second and more difficult problem is 
mechanical, to produce such movement and change of 
air as will prevent its becoming overladen with unsan- 
itary or disease-producing products. 



36 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(e) The Effects of Bad Ventilation. Thus far, we 
have discussed the causes and nature of air- vitiation, 
without much consideration of its effects. To set forth 
the full and ultimate effects of breathing impure or 
vitiated air would require a more elaborate and scien- 
tific exposition than can be attempted here. That would 
belong to the sphere of pathology rather than of school 
management. But the observant teacher is familiar 
with those immediate results which affect the success 
of his endeavors. First, semi-conscious discomfort and 
the resulting restlessness and diminution in power of 
attention. Second, torpor and sluggishness, even to the 
extent of drowsiness and mental obtuseness. Third, 
headaches and disturbed circulation. All resulting in 
loss of mental energy and of the natural enjoyment of 
mental activity. The permanent effects on the nervous 
system and the general bodily tone are carried over 
into the home and furnish occasion for the services 
of the physician later on. 

The Means of Ventilation. 

(a) Window Ventilation. A simple and time- 
honored means of ventilation is that of open windows, 
though this, in cold weather at least, does not conform 
to our definition of changes of air without injurious 
change of temperature. However, if proper precautions 
are exercised against sitting in the drafts thus caused, 
this is better than no change of air at all; though a 
good deal of truth is embodied in the saying that 
"bad air is a slow poison but drafts are a two-edged 
sword/' Even in hot weather, it is extremely danger- 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 37 

ous to sit near an open window. There are certain de- 
vices, however, which may easily be employed to lessen 
this danger from window ventilation. The simplest of 
these is the placing of a board several inches wide and 
as long as the window is wide under the lower sash, 
which is thus caused to overlap the upper sash. This 
admits an upward movement of air between the two 
sashes and above the heads of the pupils, which diffuses 
itself into the room. A more complicated apparatus 
consists of a thin board of similar length and greater 
width, attached to the top of the upper sash so that 
when the sash is lowered a current of air is shunted 
against the ceiling and is thence diffused through the 
room. Where no such device is employed, it should be 
made the rule to open windows always at the top, and 
never on the windward side of the room. 

At recess time, however, when the pupils are in 
motion or out of the room, it is a good practice to 
open wide the windows for a few minutes and so secure 
a greater or less change of all the air in the room. But 
this should not be carried to the extent of reducing the 
temperature of the room too greatly or too long. 

(b) Mechanical, or Fan Ventilation. The only 
thoroughly effective and reliable method of ventilation 
seems to be that of a forced movement and control of 
air by means of a revolving fan or turbine. This in- 
volves, of course, the presence of power for the driving 
of the fan. The best forms of this fan system include 
also a chamber into which the outside air is admitted 
after having been partially warmed, or tempered, by 
passing through steam coils. From this chamber, or 



38 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

plenum, in which the air pressure is greater than 
that outside, the air is distributed by flues to the several 
rooms. Provision must also be made for the escape of 
the foul air which is to be displaced. The fresh air is 
usually introduced near the top of the room, while the 
foul air is drawn off or forced out through registers 
near, or sometimes in, the floor. One rule, here, should 
be carefully observed, the intake and outlet registers 
should not be placed on opposite sides of the room. 
Formerly, it was thought that two fans were necessary, 
one to push and the other to pull; but it is now recog- 
nized that if enough fresh air is forced in, the old air 
will of necessity find its way out. Since the fresh air 
is not introduced at a high temperature, it is usually 
found necessary, in cold climates, to reinforce this 
system with provision for direct radiation of heat from 
steam coils, or radiators, suitably placed in the rooms, 
preferably under the windows. 

(c) Gravity Ventilation. The system known as 
gravity ventilation attempts to secure the needful move- 
ment and change of air not by the application of force 
mechanically but by the effect of heat upon the specific 
gravity of air, or, stated more concisely, by the produc- 
tion of heated columns of air rising through ventilating 
shafts under the influence of gravity. The heating 
apparatus, usually hot air furnaces, is connected by 
pipes with the rooms to be warmed, and also provided 
with a fresh-air intake. The air, warmed by contact 
with the shell of the furnace, rises into the rooms, which 
are provided with foul-air ducts up which the air again 
rises after circulating through the room. It will easily 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 39 

be seen that such a system must be greatly inferior in 
efficiency and reliability to the fan system; though it 
serves a useful purpose, in small buildings or other 
places where forced ventilation is, for any reason, 
impracticable. 

The Jacketed Stove. — The old-time box stove, like 
the still older fireplace, produced a sort of ventilation 
by drawing in air from the room and passing it up the 
chimney. This was very wasteful of heat, and did not 
produce a proper diffusion of that which remained. 
But a modern device known as the jacketed stove is 
capable of very good results in country schools and other 
small assembly rooms. 

This apparatus may be simply described as follows. 
The central item is an upright, cylindrical stove of 
adequate size, burning either wood or coal. Around this 
stove, at a distance of perhaps six inches, is placed a 
galvanized iron shell, or jacket, starting several inches 
above the floor and extending somewhat above the top 
of the stove. This jacket is provided with an asbestos 
lining to prevent too rapid radiation of heat. Inside 
this, there should be another lining, of corrugated tin. 
A fresh-air pipe, or intake, at least twelve inches in 
diameter should open into the jacket. If brought from 
the outside foundation wall, under the floor, it should 
turn upwards to a level several inches above the bottom 
of the jacket. But, if the stove is rightly placed, it may 
be brought through the side wall of the room and tap 
into the jacket at the level indicated. There should be 
a close-fitting damper in this intake, near the outer 
end, which can be closed when the stove is not in use. 



40 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

The construction of the chimney is a matter of im- 
portance. It should be located in one end of the room 
and extend from the ground to a point at least four 
feet above the peak of the roof. Its inside dimensions 
should be at least sixteen inches square. A double- 
course chimney is preferable. Inside the chimney 
should be placed a steel smoke stack eight inches in 
diameter with a T in it at the level of the smoke open- 
ing in the stove, which should be directly connected 
with the steel stack. The bottom of the stack should 
be tightly closed. 

A wing register, 16 by 20 inches, should be set in 
the bottom of the chimney, the lower edge of the regis- 
ter being an inch or two above the floor level. 

The smoke from the stove, passing up the stack, will 
warm the interior of the chimney enough to produce 
an upward current of air, drawing out air from the 
room. At the same time, the stove will create a strong- 
upward current within the jacket, and the fresh air 
warmed by contact with the stove will be sent towards 
the ceiling to be thence reflected, and. diffused through 
the room. 

It is important for the effective Avorking of any sys- 
tem of heating and ventilation that windows should be 
tight and the floor free from cracks. There should also 
be no cracks or openings in the ceiling. 

There are a number of patented apparatuses now on 
the market which employ this principle of the jacketed 
stove effectively. Their outward appearance is of 
course more satisfactory than that of a home-made 
apparatus. Where the school house has a basement, 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 41 

which is desirable for other reasons, a furnace will 
take the place of the jacketed stove, and the warmed air 
will be introduced into the schoolroom through registers 
in the floor. The same plan for smoke stack and venti- 
lating shaft will be necessary. 

The Proper Amount of Ventilation. — A funda- 
mental consideration in the problem of ventilation is 
the question of the amount or ra|)idity of air change 
necessary to insure healthful conditions in the school- 
room. Specialists differ somewhat in their conclusions; 
hence, it seems well to note some of the data on which 
their reasoning is based. 

The Difference in Composition between Pure and 
Impure Air. Atmospheric air, as has already been said, 
consists of a mixture of approximately 79 per cent of 
nitrogen and a little less than 21 per cent of oxygen, 
with a small admixture of a number of substances, in- 
cluding three or four one-hundredths of one per cent of 
carbon dioxide. Expired air contains practically the 
same percentage of nitrogen but only 15.4 per cent of 
oxygen — a loss of over 25 per cent of the amount of 
oxygen — and 4.3 per cent of carbon dioxide, an increase 
of over one hundred fold, or 10,000 per cent. 

Now it might, perhaps, be conceded that even this 
amount of carbon dioxide is not poisonous in itself 
but, as has already been stated, if this air be rebreathed 
it refuses, so to speak, to take up any more carbon 
dioxide from the lungs, but leaves the blood still un- 
relieved of its waste products, with evil results to the 
whole svstem. 



42 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(b) The Proper Bate of Change. How long will it 
take to change the air of a room from one of these 
conditions to the other? That will, of course,, depend 
on the size of the room and the number of people 
occupying it. There seems to be pretty general agree- 
ment among scientific investigators that, for safety, the 
percentage of carbon dioxide should never be allowed 
to exceed six one-hundredths of one per cent. It is 
figured on this basis that each person should be sup- 
plied with from 2000 to 3000 cu. ft. of air per hour. 
In Massachusetts, the minimum standard fixed by the 
Inspectors of Public Buildings is 30 cu. ft. of fresh 
air per minute for each pupil, though in many modern 
buildings from 40 to 50 cu. ft. is supplied. 

Adopting the Massachusetts rule of 30 cu. ft. per 
minute, in a room 25 by 32 by 12 ft. containing forty 
persons, the whole air content of the room would have to 
be changed once in eight minutes. To do this without 
creating strong drafts in the room, it is necessary that 
the flues, both for admission and exit, be large enough 
to carry the required amount of air at a low velocity. 
A slow but large movement of air is what is required. 

The Humidity of the School Atmosphere. — A mat- 
ter which has but recently begun to command due 
attention is that of the proper humidification of the 
air in schoolrooms. It was at one time generally be- 
lieved that a dry atmosphere was especially desirable 
for persons in delicate health, particularly the victims of 
tuberculosis; and thousands of these have been sent to 
the arid regions of our country as the only hopeful 



HEATING AND VENTILATION 43 

curative agency. That doctrine and practice now seem 
to be in the process of abandonment. 

In harmony with this change of belief, the view is 
gaining acceptance that the health of school children 
suffers from excessive dryness of the air. It is held 
that the breathing of dry air into the lungs will injure 
the delicate cells of the mucous membrane, permitting 
less oxygen to be taken through the cells into the blood. 
This will result in poorer work in the school and 
lowered vitality in general. 

In the most modern and highly approved heating 
apparatus, at the present time, provision is made for 
humidifying the air by the injection of live steam into 
the plenum, or air chamber, from which the tempered 
fresh air is distributed to the rooms. It is held, with 
reason, that this increase of moisture in the air makes 
a high temperature in the rooms unnecessary, and so 
results, under proper management, in a considerable 
decrease in the amount of fuel consumed. Under such 
a system, children will be perfectly comfortable, it is 
alleged, with a temperature of 60°. 

In small buildings, or those having an antiquated 
system of heating, this humidification of the air can 
be accomplished, to some extent, by the evaporation 
of water in pans placed about the furnace or in the air 
flues. With such apparatus, the teacher should be 
vigilant in seeing that the pans are kept continually 
supplied with water. 



CHAPTER IV 

GENERAL SANITATION 

Heating and ventilation might well be considered 
as belonging to the field of sanitation; but they have 
been thought of such importance as to require a sepa- 
rate chapter. They are differentiated also by the fact 
that they have so immediate an effect on the menial 
states and energy of the pupils. But there are certain 
other matters which are entitled to intelligent and 
watchful attention on the part of the teacher. 

The Drinking Water. — Mention has been made, 
in our discussion of the school site, of the importance 
of a suitable supply of pure water, from a w r ell on 
the premises in the case of rural schools. But attention 
should be given also to the matter of drinking vessels. 
The common cup or dipper, passing from hand to hand 
and from mouth to mouth, was tolerated for ages 
without challenge; but sanitary science has now de- 
creed its abolition, and it is fast giving place to the 
"bubble" fountain, where that is practicable. 

In Wisconsin, the State Board of Health has pro- 
hibited the use of the common cup, and the school- 
houses are now being provided with closed water tanks 
with spring faucets and individual cups. A row of 
these, each marked with its owner's name, hangs con- 

44 



GENERAL SANITATION 45 

veniently beside the tank. A similar prohibition has 
been enacted in several other states. 

Sweeping and Cleaning. — What responsibility has 
the teacher for the cleanness of the schoolroom and its 
contents? In buildings where a janitor is employed, 
it is v the teacher's duty to see that he does his work 
efficiently. If he is not directly under control of the 
room-teacher, then she must reach him through the 
principal or the school board. She has no right to 
absolve herself from that responsibility. But there 
are many cases where the teacher must be her own 
janitor, at least in part. 

The first problem arising here is that of the best 
method of sweeping and dusting. The time-honored 
way of sweeping with a common broom had the result 
of stirring up the dust so that, while it removed coarse 
dirt and litter, it left the most dangerous part of the 
dust to float in the air and again settle upon the furni- 
ture and apparatus. The dusting, if done at all, was 
usually done with a brush which whipped the dust 
and germs up into the air again to repeat the process 
of settling somewhere. 

Various devices have been proposed and tried for the 
overcoming of these difficulties. "Dustless oil/' which 
retains a somewhat viscid surface and so tends to hold 
the dust and keep it from rising, was, for some years, 
quite popular, but eventually left the floor in bad con- 
dition. Sweeping brushes with a receptable attached 
for slowly giving out kerosene have also had some advo- 
cates. The time is probably near at hand when the 



46 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

"vacuum cleaner" of some type will play the larger 
part in all housecleaning ; but at present the most 
satisfactory aid to the sweeping process is found in 
the "sweeping mixtures/' composed in part of saw- 
dust, oil, and other ingredients, which are now on the 
market at a moderate cost. The mixture is strewed 
upon the floor and then swept up with large sweeping- 
brushes, taking the dust with it without raising it in 
the air. The same portion of the material can be 
used several times over. 

Desks and other furniture should not be dusted by 
any switching process, but with soft dust-cloths, 
operated by hand, and frequently cleaned. The dust 
should be taken up into the cloth and not whipped 
about. But school cleaning does not end with sweep- 
ing and dusting. Chalk dust should not be allowed 
to accumulate, and the erasers should be frequently 
cleaned by beating or otherwise. The windows espe- 
cially should be kept bright, and the ceiling free from 
every suggestion of cobwebs. 

Periodical Cleaning. — In the old-time country- 
school, it was customary to hold an annual house- 
cleaning "bee," at which the good women of the dis- 
trict would congregate for the mopping out and scrub- 
bing of the interior. Once a year was, at least, better 
than nothing. But modern ideas of sanitation would 
demand a more frequent application of hot water and 
the scrubbing brush. A monthly mopping of floors in 
all graded and country schools is not too much to ask. 

Of course, a competent and faithful janitor will be 



GENERAL SANITATION 47 

always house cleaning, here a little, there a good deal; 
but every vacation will furnish occasion for a more 
general campaign. The coming of autumn frosts and 
the end of "fly-time" will be the signal for a general 
cleaning of windows. 

There should be at least a weekly washing of black- 
boards, with a mixture of vinegar and water, a pint 
of vinegar to a gallon of water. A cloth slightly damp- 
ened with kerosene is also very useful for that purpose. 

Closets, Outbuildings, etc. — Even housekeepers of 
high repute could not all bear the test of an inspection 
of the "sink-cupboard/' the boxed up space under the 
kitchen sink. And there are many teachers who have 
somewhere in the schoolroom a "catch-all," a closet 
which does not get even a weekly setting to rights and 
dusting out. A superintendent would find it quite 
instructive to take an inside look, from time to time, 
at every closet and store-room in the school building. 
A wise school board would do that, and would also make 
a thorough inspection of the school basement, looking 
for that "bone-yard" into which broken apparatus and 
furniture are likely to be dumped by an untidy janitor 
or principal, and left to accumulate for years^ it may be. 

In cases where the water-closets are placed in the 
basement, there should be the utmost care, first, to 
provide adequate and effective drainage and ventilation, 
and, second, to keep everything clean to the eye and 
the touch. This supervision is especially the duty of 
the principal, and daily inspection is not too frequent. 

In the case of country schools and schools in small 



48 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

towns without sewerage systems, this problem is even 
more difficult. In such cases, there should be, as a 
matter of common decency, separate out-buildings for 
the two sexes at some distance apart, with proper walks 
leading to them, as already described on page 17. 
The proper construction of the vaults is an important 
matter for which the school board is responsible; but it 
is a duty of the teacher to keep the board properly and 
promptly advised of all defects and needed repairs 
or renovation. Negligence and false modesty are alike 
reprehensible in such a case. There is, perhaps, no 
fairer test of the civilization of a school district than 
its attention to or neglect of this matter of the school 
outbuildings. 

In this connection, it is fitting to consider the very 
serious problem of the moral contamination which inev- 
itably results from the defacement of school outbuild- 
ings by vulgar writing, drawings, etc. The conditions 
which have often existed in this particular were nothing 
less than horrible; and their existence has always been 
more or less due to the weakness or negligence of 
teachers. It should always be remembered that it is 
the first offence that counts. For one defacement of 
any kind is a challenge to other lawless pupils to repeat 
the offence or surpass it. Daily inspection of outbuild- 
ings is the first step towards their purity. "Eternal 
vigilance" is the price of more things than liberty. 

There should also be a strong effort to secure the co- 
operation of pupils in this endeavor. This has some- 
times been accomplished by appointing a committee of 



GENERAL SANITATION 49 

pupils, including some of those most likely to offend, 
to co-operate with the teacher in securing decency. 

Contagious Diseases. — The teacher will often be 
confronted with questions of duty as to the exclusion of 
pupils who have been exposed to contagious diseases, or 
who show symptoms of the incipiency of such illness. 
He must always remember that he is,, in the nature of the 
case, the official guardian of the health of pupils from 
all avoidable attacks; and that it is always best to be 
"on the safe side". The following rules, issued to Med- 
ical Inspectors of schools in Chicago and other cities, 
will afford useful guidance to principals and teachers 
in the matter of exclusion : 

"Examinations are to be made for the following dis- 
eases ; Scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, rotheln, small- 
pox, chicken pox, Tonsillitis, pediculosis, ringworm, im- 
petigo contagiosa, or other transmissible diseases of the 
skin, scalp, and eye. Tuberculosis, when thought to be 
far enough advanced to be a menace to the public health, 
must be reported to the Chief Medical Inspector before 
excluding the pupil from school. 

" Scarlet fever cases must not be allowed to re- 
turn to school until all desquamation is completed, and 
there is an entire absence of discharge from ears, nose, 
throat or suppurating glands and the child and premises 
are disinfected. This requires at least six weeks ; severe 
cases, eight weeks or longer. 

"Diphtheria cases must be excluded until two 
throat cultures made upon two consecutive days show 
absence of the Klebs-Loeffler bacilli. Those exposed to 
diphtheria should be excluded one week from last ex- 
posure. 



50 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

"Measles cases are very infectious in the early 
stages, and must be excluded at least three weeks and 
longer if there is present bronchitis, inflammation of 
the throat or nose or abscess of the ear. Those exposed 
to measles should be excluded two weeks from date of 
last exposure. 

"Whooping Cough.- — Cases should be excluded 
until after the spasmodic stage of cough — usually about 
eight weeks. Whooping cough is very infectious in the 
early stages of the disease. Those exposed to whooping 
cough should be excluded two weeks from date of last 
exposure. 

"Mumps. — Exclude ten days after all swelling 

has subsided. Those exposed to mumps should be ex- 
cluded three weeks from date of last exposure. 

"Chicken Pox. — Exclude until scabs are all off 
and skin smooth — two or three weeks, according to the 
severity of the attack. 

_"Rotheln, German Measles. — Exclude from school 

two weeks. Those exposed to rotheln must be excluded 
from school three weeks from date of last exposure." 

The great enemies of regularity of school attendance 
are whooping cough and measles. Mumps and chicken 
pox are less serious. Scarlet fever and diphtheria are 
more dreaded; but the progress of medical and sani- 
tary science has brought them under control, and the 
vigilance of doctors in the matter of quarantine is 
such that comparatively few children now get into 
school in a condition to communicate those diseases. 

But the teacher should be always alert to note any- 
thing abnormal in the actions of the children and thus 
to detect cases of sore throat, feverishness, etc., which 



GENERAL SANITATION 51 

would furnish grounds for suspicion, especially when 
any of these diseases are epidemic in the community. 
Children thus suffering should be promptly sent home 
and advised to remain there till all question is removed, 
or till they have sought the advice of the family physi- 
cian. A few days of absence is the least of evils in 
such a case. 

It is best, always, to seek the advice of the medical 
attendant or the health officer as to the safe time for 
return to school of a pupil who has been kept out by 
any contagious disease whatever. The disinfection or 
destruction of all text-books which have been handled 
by the patient or which have been in his home during 
his illness, is also a matter which the teacher should 
carefully look after. 

Mention ought to be made, no doubt, of a con- 
tagious disease of the eye to which pupils are some- 
times subject. Technically, it is known as conjuncti- 
vitis, but popularly as "pink-eye." It affects the lining 
membrane of the eyelids and the periphery of the eye- 
ball, and it may be communicated by anything which 
comes in contact with the discharge, as towels, hand- 
kerchiefs, etc. The ailment is really a serious one and 
every person affected by it should at once seek medical 
attention, and remain from school till wholly recovered. 

What Children Should be Taught with a View to 
Prevention. — The following printed rules are dis- 
tributed to all pupils in the schools of Providence, E. I., 
and should be taught to all children anywhere. 



52 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

REMEMBER THESE THINGS 

Do not spit if you can help it. Never spit on a slate, 
floor, or sidewalk. 

Do not put the fingers into the mouth. 
_Do not pick the nose or wipe the nose on the hand or 
sleeve. 

Do not wet the finger in the mouth when turning the 
leaves of books. 

Do not put pencils into the mouth or wet them with 
the lips. 

Do not put money into the mouth. 

Do not put pins into the mouth. 

Do not put anything into the mouth except food and 
drink. 

Do not swap apple cores, candy, chewing gum, half 
eaten food, whistles, or bean blowers or anything that is 
put in the mouth. 

Never cough or sneeze in a person's face. Turn your 
face to one side. 

Keep your face and hands clean; wash the hands with 
soap and water before each meal. 

Medical Inspection of Schools. — It is desirable 
that teachers everywhere should learn something of the 
growing movement for the medical inspection of schools. 
It is coming to be more and more clearly seen that 
good health and sound bodily organs are essential to 
good citizenship, and that educational expense and 
effort are largely wasted when children are handicapped 
by physical defects and abnormal physical conditions. 
It is becoming increasingly evident that intellectual 
efficiency and moral health are largely dependent upon 
normal bodily conditions; and hence that every argu- 
ment for universal public education is also an argu- 



GENEEAL SANITATION 53 

ment for making such education efficient and success- 
ful by the removal or diminution of all physical 
obstacles thereto. Where parents through ignorance 
or poverty fail to remove these handicaps, the state 
must step in for its own protection and welfare. 

In Great Britain and in some of the principal Amer- 
ican cities, this principle is fully accepted, and a sys- 
tem of medical supervision of school children is well 
established. At first, in American cities, as New York, 
this supervision was chiefly directed towards restricting 
the spread of contagious diseases and the securing of 
sanitary conditions in school buildings ; but the work 
is now taking on a wider scope by providing for the 
children of the needy free medical advice, and even 
service, for the correction of bodily defects and 
abnormalities. 

This service extends not only to defects of the sense 
organs, which will be discussed in the following chap- 
ter, but also, and especially, to the care and preserva- 
tion of the teeth, a matter which is now commanding 
serious attention as having an importance hitherto un- 
recognized in the physical and mental history of 
children. 

But in this matter, and others of similar nature, the 
teacher should not wait for the provision of expert med- 
ical inspection. There is much which can and should 
be done on the initiative of the individual teacher, by 
way of instruction and friendly counsel. 



CHAPTER V 
THE HYGIENE OF THE SENSE OEGANS 

As has already become manifest, it is impossible to 
make even an elementary review of the physical side 
of school management without excursions into the field 
of physiology. School hygiene and school manage- 
ment are inseparable. And yet it is only within the 
present generation that the teaching world has begun 
to have any suspicion, much less clear comprehension, 
of how the iwhole business of education is hindered and 
even thwarted by defects in the bodily organs, especially 
the organs of the special senses. A chapter must, there- 
fore, be given to the hygiene of the nose, ear, and eye; 
though the treatment can only be suggestive and in 
no sense thorough and exhaustive. 

Abnormal Conditions of the Nose and Pharynx. — 

The most common abnormality of the nasal tract, 
though often unsuspected by the victim or his friends, 
is that known as adenoids. In the naso-pharynx, the 
upper part of the pharynx, above the soft palate and 
continuous with the nasal passages, is a spongy tissue 
somewhat resembling the tissue of the tonsils. This 
frequently grows abnormally and becomes so large as 
to exert considerable pressure and obstruction in the 
region occupied by it. As a result, the child is unable 
to breathe freely through the nose and becomes what 

54 



HYGIENE OF THE SENSE OEGANS 55 

is known as a "mouth-breather/' His hearing is often 
also affected, he is unable to give due attention to school 
exercises, and memory thus becomes defective. The 
child experiences difficulty in blowing his nose, and his 
voice has a nasal quality. The shape of the mouth 
cavity is often changed so as to result in defective 
articulation. The presence of adenoids is easy of de- 
tection by an observant eye; the habit of breathing 
with the mouth open raises strong suspicion at once; 
the face is liable to acquire a peculiar and unpleasant 
expression, a dull and vacant look, while imperfect ar- 
ticulation and a disagreeable quality of voice add their 
testimony. 

The prompt removal of these growths should be 
brought about as soon as possible in the interest of the 
child's mental and physical life. It is the teacher's 
part to study carefully every case of marked dullness 
among his pupils, to watch for the symptoms of 
adenoid trouble, and when found, to urge upon the 
parents the serious nature of the defect and the impor- 
tance of prompt and thorough medical examination. 

Adenoid trouble is confined to the school period, 
chiefly between the ages of six and sixteen. After this 
time, the growth of the glands is checked and they are 
slowly reduced in size by being absorbed into the sys- 
tem; but the evil effects will never be outgrown. 

Other diseased or abnormal conditions in the nose and 
pharynx sometimes exist, all unsuspected but a source 
of hindrance to the child's progress in school. Enlarge- 
ment of the tonsils is frequent, with results not unlike 



56 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

those of adenoids. In many cases, removal of the 
tonsils would greatly improve both the health and men- 
tal vigor of the child. Polypus, a sort of tumor, or 
abnormal growth, on the mucous membrane in the 
nose is sometimes, but less frequently, a cause of 
similar trouble, and demands, first, detection, and, sec- 
ondly, surgical attention. The habit of mouth- 
breathing may indicate this trouble. 

Abnormal Conditions in the Ear. — A handicap 
under which not a few pupils labor is that of partial 
deafness. This may be the result of infantile diseases, 
of catarrh, or of enlarged tonsils and adenoid growths 
as described in the foregoing paragraphs. Often, how- 
ever, it is a result of the hardening of the ear wax, 
causing inflammation or congestion in the tympanic 
membrane. Most of these causes are removable by 
proper medical or surgical treatment, though chronic 
catarrh is perhaps the most refractory of all. 

Many a child acquires a reputation for dullness or 
stupidity because of his defective hearing. He does 
not clearly hear questions or directions, the words 
which he does hear are blurred and indistinct, while 
the unemphatic connectives and relation words drop 
out altogether. Consonant sounds are obscured, and 
he is left to guess at the setting of the vowels. 

It need hardly be said that it is the teacher's duty 
to be watchful for indications of dull hearing and use 
all due effort to discover the nature of the causes and 
report the same to the parents. Such children should 
be favored in the matter of seats, or position with ref- 



HYGIENE OF THE SENSE OKGANS 57 

erence to the teacher and the class, the best position 
being a front comer of the class, so to speak. 

Simple tests may be used to detect, and determine 
the degree of, aural dullness. The most common test, 
to determine the distance at which the child can hear 
the ticking of a watch, is quite unreliable. A better 
test consists in whispering certain words at different 
distances, behind the pupil's back, to see how well he 
can recognize and repeat them, comparing his success 
or failure with that of normal pupils. Sometimes, there 
is partial; or total, deafness in one ear only, which' re- 
sults to the disadvantage of the pupil. This condition, 
also, should be discovered and recognized when it exists. 
It ought to be needless to add that the ear is a very 
delicate and complicated organ, which should never be 
subjected to blows or rough treatment. • 

Directions for Testing Hearing. — The following 
extracts taken from the directions promulgated by the 
Massachusetts State Board of Health should be useful 
to teachers. 

The examination should be conducted in a room not 
less than 25 to 30 feet long. The floor should be marked 
off with parallel lines one foot apart. 

The .pupil should stand at one end of the room with 
his back to the examiner. 

The examination should be made with the whispered 
or spoken voice; the child should repeat what he hears, 
and the distance at which words can be heard distinctly 
should be noted. 

The examiner should attempt to form standards by 
testing persons of normal hearing at normal distances. 
In a still room, the standard whisper can be heard easily 
at 25 feet. 



58 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

The test words should consists of numbers, 1 to 100, 
and short sentences. 

It is best that but one pupil at a time be allowed in 
the room. The two ears should be tested separately. 

Defects of Vision. — The eye is the most highly 
specialized of all the organs of the body and is corre- 
spondingly subject to malformation and disorders. 
With blindness, the ordinary teacher does not have to 
deal, but with the various forms of partial blindness 
or imperfect vision, he is liable to have daily contact. 
The most common of these are due to malformation of 
the eye ball and its refracting media. They are known 
as myopia, or near-sightedness; hypermetropia, or far- 
sightedness; and astigmatism. 

Myopia, the commonest of eye defects, results from 
too great convexity of the crystalline lens, or the eye 
ball is too long, so that the rays of light are focused 
before reaching the retina. This is very easy of detec- 
tion and also of correction where not complicated with 
other defects. Hypermetropia, or far-sightedness — not 
the far-sightedness of old age, however — is more diffi- 
cult of both detection and correction. It results when 
the lens is too flat, or the eye ball too short, so that 
the rays would focus behind the retina. 

Astigmatism is a defect in the structure of the eye 
in which there is unequal curvature of the cornea or 
lens along certain lines, in consequence of which the 
rays of light from a given point are not brought to a 
single focal point, thus causing imperfect images. The 
effect of this is to blur those letters especially, in read- 



HYGIENE OF THE SENSE OKGANS 59 

ing, which contain round or oval forms, as 0, c, d or the 
capitals B, P, etc. 

The immediate effect of all these, especially astigma- 
tism, is blurred and indistinct vision. In school, the 
child does not see words clearly, or sees only parts of 
words. Bad reading and bad spelling are, therefore, 
the natural and innocent result. The miscalling and 
misspelling of words are always ground for suspicion, 
at least, that one or more of these defects exists. Since 
they can all be corrected by the proper adjustment of 
lenses, it is a sin against the mental life of the child 
when an unobservant or indifferent teacher permits him 
to go on in school the victim of undiscovered abnor- 
malities of vision. 

Inequality of Vision. — Another defect, often 
wholly unsuspected by any one, is that of unequal power, 
or range, in the two eyes. One eye may be normal and 
the other myopic, or both may be myopic in different 
degrees. This inequality is found in all degrees. In 
some cases, the difference is so great that the child is 
practically one-eyed, one eye being overworked while the 
other is starved, as it were. In other cases, the differ- 
ence is so small that the eyes constantly struggle to 
focus or accommodate equally, which results in eye- 
strain, often causing headaches and nervous derange- 
ments. Observations made by the writer through a 
period of years on a large number of adult students 
showed that fully twenty-five per cent of the whole 
number were subject to various degrees of inequality of 
range in the two eyes. 



60 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

This trouble, too, can, in most cases, be overcome by 
a proper adjustment of glasses. The chief difficulty 
is found in the fact that even the victims of all the 
defects named are usually wholly unconscious of their 
abnormality. Some very near-sighted youth go on to 
adult years without discovering that they differ from 
other people in their vision. An acquaintance of the 
writer, a man in almost middle life, went, with his 
wife, to consult an optician, who fitted him with 
glasses. Looking out upon the street, he said to his 
waiting wife, "You stay here, I am going out to see 
this town." He was not previously able to see trees 
or houses clearly across the street, and he had suddenly 
come into a new world. 

The Teacher's Duty. — While the teacher is not an 
oculist, it is clearly his duty to qualify himself for the 
detection, in school, of these major deformities of the 
sense organs, and then to be vigilant in their discovery, 
and faithful in urging upon parents the importance of 
competent professional attention. For the sure dis- 
covery of the various eye defects, a simple apparatus is 
necessary, in the shape of a large card, with letters and 
characters printed on it, ' which can be hung upon the 
wall when needed for use. A suitable card, or chart, 
devised by Monoyer of Paris, is published by Ginn & Co. 
Other cards of low cost, printed with the Snellen test 
types, which are now perhaps most commonly used, 
may be had through any druggist. Directions for their 
use, which requires no technical skill, accompany the 
cards. A reduced copy of one of these charts is given 
herewith. 



HYGIENE OF THE SENSE ORGANS 61 



EO 

BOF 



Much attention 
should be given by 
the teacher to the 
postures of pupils 
in studying and 
w r i t i n g They 
should not be al- 
lowed to lean for- 
ward with bent head 
and neck. The ten- 
dency to bring the *1P *lf^ "D ^^^ 
face down near the JLhI JLJ wm V^ 
page is usually a 

sure sign of myopia ^^ ^V T^i 1P% TTl 
or other eye defect. ™* ^^ ™* «^^ ™ 
Even where it is . 

only a careless ,£ C T XJ O £ 
habit, it is in every 

way unhygienic and B P E D O T C 
should be persever- 

ingly corrected. The ELNFCTDB 
first step, however, 

should be to send TOPDLEFNCB 

the pupil to a com- 

1 r OETHPLDBPC 

p e t e n t optician. 

The normal dis- oobetklc^t 

tance at which the 

page should be held from the eye is about fourteen 

inches. 

Rules for Testing the Eyesight. — The following 
rules issued by the Massachusetts State Board of Health 



62 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

can readily be followed by any teacher of common 
intelligence. 

To Test the Eyesight 

Hang the Snellen test letters in a good, clear light 
(side light preferred), on a level with the head. Place 
the child 20 feet from the letters, one eye being covered 
with a card held firmly against the nose, without press- 
ing on the covered eye, and have him read aloud, from 
left to right, the smallest letters he can see on the card. 
Make a record of the result. 

To Record the Acuteness of Eyesight 

There is a number over each line of test letters, which 
shows the distance in feet at which these letters should 
be read by a normal eye. From top to bottom, the lines 
on the card are numbered respectively 50, 40, 30, and 20. 
At a distance of 20 feet the average normal eye should 
read the letters on the 20 -foot line, and if this is done 
correctly, or with ajnistake of one or two letters, the 
vision may be noted as 20/20, or normal. In this frac- 
tion^ the numerator is the distance in feet at which the 
letters are read, and the denominator is the number over 
the smallest line of letters read. If the smallest letters 
which can be read are on the 30-foot line, the vision will 
be noted as 20/30 ; if the letters on the 40-foot line are 
the smallest that can be read, the record will be 20/40 ; 
if the letters on the 50-foot line are the smallest that 
can be read, the record will be 20/50. 

If the child can not see the largest letters, the 50-foot 
line, have him approach slowly until a distance is found 
where they can be seen. If 5 feet is the greatest dis- 
tance at which they can be read, the record will be 5/50 
(1/10 of normal). 

Test the second eye, the first being covered with the 



HYGIENE OF THE SENSE OEGANS 63 

card, and note the result, as before. With the second 
eye have the child read the letters from right to left, to 
avoid memorizing. 

Whenever it is found that the child has less than 
normal sight, 20/20, in either eye, that the eyes or eye- 
lids are habitually red and inflamed, or that there is a 
complaint of pain in the eyes or head after reading, the 
teacher should send a notice to the parent that the child's 
eyes need medical attention. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TEACHER 

Having now considered with some fullness the physi- 
cal side of the school, the place and material conditions 
demanded for the successful prosecution of the educa- 
tion of children, it is proper to consider next the essen- 
tial characteristics of the efficient and successful teacher, 
the central factor in the educational process. The teacher, 
as we have often heard, stands in loco parentis, and 
we have already begun to see, in our study, that this 
is true in a much fuller and deeper sense than has 
usually been assigned to the phrase. The teacher is the 
main factor in this work of supplementing the home 
which we have recognized as the function of the school. 
He is charged with important functions and duties 
towards the children which their parents are unable or 
unwilling to perform. What sort of person, then, 
should this be to whom some of the most important 
and sacred duties of the parent are delegated? 

Essential Characteristics of the Teacher. — What 

are the essential characteristics of the ideal teacher? 

(a) Instructional Efficiency. In the minds of many 
people, if not most, the teacher is thought of simply 
as an instructor; his business is to impart knowledge 
and skill; all his other functions are only auxiliary 
to this main function of instruction. Without endors- 

64 



THE TEACHER 65 

ing for a moment this superficial view of the teacher's 
mission, we may recognize fully that instructional effi- 
ciency is an attribute which every one has a right to 
expect in a teacher as a condition of his continuance 
in the work. 

This implies scholarship, that is, an acquaintance 
not only with that field, or segment, of knowledge 
which he is to communicate or develop in the minds of 
his particular pupils, but with wider fields of related 
knowledge. The fit teacher must have some outlook 
upon the big world of human achievement and aspira- 
tion. He must, in his own soul, live in a larger world 
than his immediate neighborhood, or even nation. He 
must, at least, know the bearings of the knowledge 
which he attempts to teach upon human life and 
endeavor. 

Secondly, his grasp upon that field of knowledge 
which he assumes to teach should be firm and accu- 
rate. It need not necessarily be exhaustive, but js 
far as it goes it should be clear and well grounded. 
Vague, hazy concepts in the teacher's mind can not 
do otherwise than generate equal vagueness and hazi- 
ness in the minds of his pupils; and there can be no 
worse failure in education than that. The would-be 
teacher who flounders and "stabs" in the process of 
instruction is in no true sense an educator. 

Moreover, the teacher should remain a student. No 
matter what his previous acquirements may have been, 
when he loses the student attitude he will no longer 
be a fertilizing teacher. 

(b) Professional Knowledge and Skill. The sue- 



66 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

cessful teacher must not only know his subjects and 
have a good degree of general culture; he needs also 
to have technical knowledge and skill. First, comes 
a theoretical acquaintance with the laws of mind, of 
mental acquisition and growth, the psychology of 
teaching. This should form the basis of a working 
acquaintance with the most approved methods of 
teaching. He should appreciate the difference between 
true method which we define as "systematic procedure 
according to jDrinciples 7 ' and mere mechanical devices, 
however useful these may be when they are in 
harmony with valid methods and principles. To this 
theoretical knowledge there must be added skill in 
presentation and in the art of questioning. This skill 
is never the result of accident, though it may be, in 
some cases, the result of natural quickness and clear- 
ness of mind. For the most part, it is a product of 
experience and conscientious effort in the way of daily 
preparation. The well thought out lesson-plan is the 
first step towards luminous exposition and strong im- 
pression. The teacher who neglects this specific prepa- 
ration and "runs his face" in the class exercise will, 
in the end, meet the failure which he so richly deserves, 
(c) Physical Efficiency. From the true point of 
view, however, the first requisite in a successful teacher 
is that of a sound, well-nourished bodily organism and 
the vigorous, reliable health which appertains naturally 
to such an organism. The nervous strain of the school- 
room is such that no invalid or semi-invalid can with- 
stand it without injury to herself and injustice to the 
children under her charge. The children have a right 



THE TEACHER 67 

to bright looks and a cheerful spirit on the part of 
their teacher. In short, the teacher who is in so many 
respects their model ought to have a wholesome, en- 
gaging personality. It is true, in a sense, that every 
teacher of children ought to be beautiful, at least a 
good specimen of human kind. Yet it is a notion 
not uncommonly held that a person who is physically 
unfit for other occupations may properly look towards 
teaching. 

Has any one a right to teach children who is notice- 
ably deformed, a hunchback, for instance, or one with 
any facial deformity? Has any one a right to assume 
the office of teacher who is tuberculous, neurasthenic, or 
dyspeptic? The question may be thought too compre- 
hensive, but only a negative answer can, in justice to 
the children, be given. Irritability, "nervousness," 
hypochondria, and all the brood of morbid moods which 
follow in the train of physical abnormality and weak- 
ness have no right to cast their shadow over the lives 
of school children, even though they may be often 
encountered in the home. 

Ought any one to be admitted to a normal school 
who is physically unequal to light gymnastics? It 
would hardly seem just to the children to open the 
doors of the teaching profession so freely to semi- 
invalids with poorly organized nervous systems or broken 
down digestive apparatus. In Great Britain, this truth 
is realized, and no person is admitted to the benefits 
of the Training Colleges (normal schools) who can 
not pass a close medical examination. 

(d) Efficiency in Control. School officers seeking a 



68 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

new teacher are prone to say, "We must have a good 
disciplinarian." Just what do they mean by that? 
What are the elements which must combine to pro- 
duce the "good disciplinarian" ? What they desire, first, 
is personal force, energy and will, that quality which 
makes things go, what, in the vernacular, is called 
"grip." The quality of leadership is essential, and the 
elements of leadership are energy, self-reliance, and 
self-control. A touchy, explosive manner will do only 
harm; but a teacher without determination and self- 
reliance may well be commiserated, for children are 
quick to discover weakness and take cruel advantage 
of it. L. M. was a practice-teacher in the Normal 
School, over whom her pupils were exercising the 
tyranny of disorder. Said her critic teacher, with more 
point than elegance, "Why don't you get mad, and 
bring them to time ?" "Oh ! Miss K., I cant get 
mad," was the hopeless reply. It was not anger but 
quiet determination, with a capacity for righteous 
wrath, that was needed. This does not imply any harsh- 
ness, or lack of sympathetic interest in the pupil; but 
a person of weak personality can not meet the demands 
of the teacher's office. 

But there is another element which is essential to the 
good disciplinarian. Discipline is not simply firm rule. 
Successful control demands skill in management, tact, 
the establishment of the proper conditions of control. 
The teacher must be alert, watchful for the beginnings 
of disorder. He must be able to distribute his atten- 
tion and not become so absorbed in the class before 
him, for instance, as to be oblivious of all that is 



THE TEACHEE 69 

going on elsewhere. Above all, the good disciplinarian 
must be self-poised, not irritable nor hasty and un- 
reasonable in requirement. 

It is only a common place to say that tact is an 
essential condition of successful control; though those 
who emphasize its necessity seldom attempt to explain 
what tact is or how it can be acquired, if at all. 
Quickness in taking in a situation and adjusting one's 
self to it, a genuine human sympathy at bottom, and 
some felicity in expression are, perhaps, the principal 
elements which enter into this useful instrument of 
control. 

The school boards are right in demanding that the 
teacher shall be a good disciplinarian, for two reasons : 

(1) Because good order is a necessary condition of 
study. Disorder means idleness, inattention to study, 
and consequent mischief, "For Satan finds . some mis- 
chief still for idle hands to do," in the words of the 
old nursery rhyme; 

(2) Because good discipline is educational, it is 
the very foundation of all moral training. If the end 
of education is "character building," then a wise 
school discipline is even more important than the in- 
struction. And the American home, in these days, is 
more and more throwing upon teachers this labor of 
moral training. 

A townswoman of the writer had a young son who 
was in need of a firmer control. A neighbor expostu- 
lated with her, saying, "You ought to teach him obedi- 
ence." "Oh," was the. nonchalant reply, "the school 



70 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

will do that/' But if the school should also fail in 
this duty, what about the boyf 

(e) Social Quality. The teacher should be "a good 
mixer/ 7 conversable but not loquacious. He should be 
genuinely interested in the life of the community, but 
should avoid alliance with cliques or factions. He 
should not shut himself up with his work to the extent 
of being thought a recluse; and, on the other hand, in 
the interest of his own success and influence, he should 
not be given to social excess in the way of dances on 
school nights, card parties, etc. In short, the teacher 
should be democratic, never exclusive; and graciousness 
of manner to "all sorts and conditions of men," grow- 
ing out of real sympathy and friendliness, will be a 
great asset in his professional career. 

(f ) Professional Spirit and Enthusiasm. The truly 
efficient teacher will love teaching, partly from pride 
in doing his work well, partly from sympathetic de- 
light in the unfolding of youthful powers, and partly 
from his abiding consciousness that it is a work worthy 
of the highest endeavor, a noble vocation and not 
merely an occupation. Ambition for professional 
growth and advancement and consciousness of fellow- 
ship with others of like purpose will conspire to make 
the genuine teacher not apologetic but proud of his 
calling. The teacher who does not feel this pride and 
has no uplifting enthusiasm for his work would do 
well to leave it at once and resort to some occupation 
of less moral responsibility. And it is as true here 
as in any other profession that the practitioner who 
would keep professionally alive must never cease to be 



THE TEACHER 71 

a student. And he needs contact not only with the 
newest literature of his profession, as found in peda- 
gogical books and periodicals, but also with his fellow 
practitioners in conventions and associations. The 
teacher who holds aloof from professional gatherings 
and thus misses contact with the men and women of 
his guild, does injury to himself and to those whom he 
is paid to serve. 

(g) High Personal Character. The reader may well 
enough wonder that the character and habits of the 
teacher have not been placed earlier in the list, since 
all these characteristics and forms of efficiency which 
we have named are, after all, largely dependent on the 
personality of the teacher. Its place in this list is not 
meant to indicate its relative importance. The teacher 
needs to be a person of high ideals, of such moral tone, 
fundamentally, that he will not be in danger daily of 
lapses in conduct through accident or inadvertence. It 
is the spirit that counts. 

The question has been asked. "Has the public a 
right to demand any higher moral standards in teachers 
than in other citizens ? v To this, there can be but 
one answer, "It has." The teacher is, willy-nilly, an 
exemplar. He is such not by his own choice or con- 
sent but by the very nature of his office. That is what 
he is selected and paid for. He may declare, "I do 
not set up as an example, or model," but that does not 
change the situation at all; lie has been set up as a 
model, and he accepts the responsibility by accepting the 
position. 

It is true, however, that manv teachers who might 



72 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

accede to this view as a general truth, or principle, 
are nevertheless very careless of personal obligations in 
the community, much to their own disadvantage. The 
teacher who "jumps" contracts, simply because he has 
no financial assets and can thus escape legal penalty, 
the teacher who is careless or indifferent about paying 
his bills, and the teacher who uses tobacco or intoxi- 
cants, all alike do damage to the youth whom they are 
employed to uplift. Aside from this question of habits 
and external relations to the community, there is one 
quality which is needful, above all others, in the 
teacher's immediate personal contact and influence with 
his pupils, inside the school and out, and that is the 
attribute of sincerity. If the teacher is truthful, 
genuine, and earnestly devoted to the improvement of 
his pupils, some minor faults or shortcomings will be 
condoned. 

Unfortunately, there are teachers who have not this 
instinct of truthfulness. They seek to ingratiate them- 
selves with pupils or parents by the distribution of 
"taffy," insincere compliment. All false pretence or 
"buncombe" is dangerous on either hand. The writer 
knew a skilful teacher who effectually taught lying 
in her school in this way. She had a special half- 
day's program which was understood to be always in 
force when visitors were present. Then the teacher 
would say, "If we had known you were coming, we 
might have prepared some special exercises; but as you 
came unexpectedly you will have to take us as you 
find us." And so they did. But the children admired 
that teacher so much for her skill and a queenly pres- 



THE TEACHER 73 

ence that they accepted the whole thing as all right and 
proper, because Miss P. did it; though children are 
usually quick to catch the note of insincerity. 

(h) Mechanical Proficiency. With some teachers, 
the whole day's work in school is thought of as chiefly 
mechanical, consisting in the giving of signals, the 
moving of classes with precision, etc. This is a most 
dangerous and deadening attitude. And yet if the 
characteristics already enumerated be found in the 
teacher the addition of mechanical expertness will in- 
crease their effectiveness. First of all, the teacher 
must not be a sloven — no more in his work than in his 
dress. Accuracy and neatness in blackboard work and 
all written work, is not only an accomplishment; it is 
a duty. Carefully made programs, effectively posted, 
accurate records and reports promptly rendered, are 
indications of an orderly and conscientious mind. And, 
we may add, that ability to stand at the blackboard 
and impress instruction by illustrative drawing is 
always a source of power in the teacher. It is a resource 
of very great value. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 

Having made some analysis of what the teacher 
should be in himself, we may next consider briefly 
the various relations in which he must stand by virtue 
of his office. "No man liveth to himself alone/' and 
the teacher is, perhaps, the farthest of any one from 
such an isolation. 

The Teacher and the Law. — One of the first ques- 
tions to arise, logically, is, "Who may teach?" Who 
shall decide whether the would-be teacher possesses 
those characteristics which we have been discussing, or 
such measure of them as would entitle him to assume 
the teacher's office? In answer, the state steps in and 
attempts to fix a standard of qualification; but, 
strangely it might seem, it confines its inquisition to 
the single matter of scholarship. The teacher must 
pass an examination before a public official in certain 
prescribed subjects; but no standards are set up for 
physical efficiency or any of the other essential charac- 
teristics of the ideal teacher. All inquiry into these 
qualifications is left to the will or judgment or caprice, 
the wisdom or the ignorance, of the myriad school 
boards that besprinkle the land. But this much is 
fixed, no person may assume to teach in a public school 
who has not the legal sanction known as a "certificate." 

74 



THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 75 

And the person who possesses that, in force, is a 
"legally qualified" teacher. 

It is to be observed, however, that a considerable 
advance has been made in recent years in the way of 
legal recognition of graduates from normal schools and 
from colleges which maintain courses in pedagogy. In 
other words, the certificate of the authorities of the 
professional school attesting the moral character, 
scholarship, and instructional efficiency of the gradu- 
ate are accepted as testimony of at least equal validity 
with the results of a technical examination into schol- 
arship alone. 

The law also demands that the public school teacher 
shall be provided not only with a certificate, or license, 
but also with a written contract executed by the school 
board. Armed with a certificate and contract, the 
teacher has nothing more to fear from the law unless 
he shall be so unwise as to administer corporal punish- 
ment of so cruel and excessive a nature as to make him 
the defendant in a lawsuit. The law is liberal towards 
the teacher's authority, but it must also stand for the 
protection of the child from undue severity. 

The Teacher and the Parent. — The parent is the 

child's first teacher, for better or for worse. On the 
foundation which the parent has laid the teacher must 
build. It will be of little avail to quarrel with this 
foundation, whatsoever it may be. It will be the part 
of the wise teacher to make himself well acquainted 
with the basis on which he is to build and there pro- 
ceed to business. It must alwavs be assumed that the 



76 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

parent always really desires the welfare and improve- 
ment of his child. Whatsoever defects are found in 
his training of the child must be considered as due to 
ignorance or defect of judgment and not to malice 
aforethought. How to remedy the defects or supple- 
ment the virtues of the home training is the compre- 
hensive problem of the child's teachers. 

We have repeatedly insisted that the school is the 
supplement of the home, that the teacher is to take 
up and discharge, as far as possible, those duties which 
the parent owes to his child but is unable individually 
to perform. 

What the Parent Delegates to the Teacher. — What, 

then, are these duties; what does the parent turn over 
to the teacher? Most consciously, of course, instruc- 
tion in books and training in the arts of acquiring 
knowledge. Less consciously, but no less truly, training 
in speech, manners, and morals. In many of the great 
city schools, the first thing to be accomplished is in- 
struction in the language of the country. But even 
along with this comes the establishment of habits and 
ideals consonant with American citizenship, in short, 
the civilizing process. But this labor is not confined 
to children of foreign parentage. Even in the case of 
native born children from well-to-do homes, the labor 
of training for social and civic responsibilities is largely 
and increasingly devolved upon the school. This is 
due, in large part at least, to the increasing luxury and 
strenuousness of American life; neither parent has 
time to meet parental responsibilities in any adequate 



THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 77 

manner, nor even time to give much attention to the 
selection of the teacher who is to stand in their place. 

Correlative Rights of Parents and Teacher. — But 

much as the average parent leaves undone and much 
as he expects the teacher to accomplish, it does not 
follow that he surrenders the child wholly to the 
tender mercies of the schoolmaster. He does not sur- 
render but entrusts his child to the school, and it may 
not be with a perfect trust. The teacher should always 
remember that it is his proper function not to super- 
sede but to supplement the parent. 

There need be little occasion for friction as to au- 
thority or jurisdiction. It is generally recognized that 
the teacher is in full control during school hours. It 
is not recognized so generally as it should be, perhaps, 
that the teacher's jurisdiction extends over the home- 
ward way as well. When the pupil has once been de- 
livered, so to speak, at his domicile, the teacher's 
responsibility ends. But there ought never to be any 
sharp question as to the boundaries of parental and 
school authority. There should be such acquaintance 
between teacher and parent, and such mutual under- 
standing, as will make co-operation not only possible 
but easy and natural. How can the teacher supplement 
the work of the parent whom he does not know, and 
with whom he never has personal conference? 

The question arises as to how such acquaintance 
can be secured. There are various methods suited to 
different environments; but it may be said here, at 
least, that the teacher should never stand on his dig- 



78 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

nity or wait for advances to come from his patrons. 
The children are, after all, the dearest possession of 
even the weakest of parents, and their interests and 
needs furnish always a common ground between parent 
and teacher. It is not wise to wait till trouble has 
arisen through misconduct of the pupil before any 
contact with the parents is sought. It is best to have 
some basis of mutual understanding before trouble de- 
velops. Of course, it is not to be expected that all 
parents will be judicious or unbiased or reasonable 
where their own children are concerned, but most 
trouble with parents of any sort arises from misunder- 
standing or misinformation. And a personal inter- 
view is the surest way of removing these. 

The Teacher and the School Board. — In the large 

city system, the teacher's relation to the board may be 
so tenuous and indirect as to occasion little thought; 
but in the country school the case is very different. In 
either case, however, the relation is real and important. 
The school as a supplement to the home is shared by 
many families; hence the need of an official body, or 
board, to represent them in its control. The teacher's 
initial contact with the board in the securing of an ap- 
pointment and the execution of a contract is only the 
beginning of what should be a cordial and intelligent 
co-operation. The board must learn of the material 
needs of the school through the teacher; the teacher 
should learn something of the conditions under which 
he is to work from the board. The board should be 
kept advised of the progress of the school and of any 



THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 79 

causes of obstruction or embarrassment, and their coun- 
sel should be frankly sought in every case of need. 

The Teacher and the Superintendent. — In a city 
system, the superintendent is the highly empowered 
representative of the school board, or at least the inter- 
mediary between board and teacher. It is on his ad- 
vices that the board acts. It is through him that the 
mandates of the board reach the teacher. But, of course, 
a superintendent worthy of his place is much more 
than a dread arbiter of the teacher's tenure. It is to 
the superintendent, above all else, that the rank and file 
teacher must go for direction, criticism, or sympathy 
and counsel in cases of difficulty. The relation between 
him and his teachers should be one of candor and 
confidence. 

In certain cases, of course, the principal will stand 
in place of the superintendent, but with less delegation 
of power. The jmncipal is likely to be also a teacher, 
and often without proper allowance of time for super- 
vision. He may, therefore, be less helpful in the way 
of suggestion from sheer overwork; yet he is, after all, 
in closer daily contact with the teachers, and the rela- 
tion should be an intimate one professionally. The first 
duty of the teacher in this relation is that of loyalty 
and cordial co-operation. A backbiting teacher, trying 
to undermine the authority or repute of the principal, 
is wholly unworthy of the position which he occupies 
or the respect of his fellows. The honorable course 
for a disaffected teacher is, first of all, to seek a better 
understanding with the principal. Failing in that, 



80 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

there remains only the alternative between an open ap- 
peal to the school board and a resignation. 

In the country schools the case is different. Each 
teacher is his own principal. The county superintendent 
does not embody the authority of a school board; he is 
the educational captain, or chief, of the county or dis- 
trict. It is his duty to marshal the educational forces 
of the country, and the teacher owes cheerful allegiance 
and prompt obedience to his requirements. Even those 
teachers who do not derive their legal sanction from him 
but from state authority, as graduates of normal schools, 
owe it to the public and to themselves to co-operate 
cordially with the superintendent in all his efforts to 
improve the educational status of his territory. A 
selfish or supercilious attitude on the part of such state- 
qualified teachers towards the local associations, teach- 
ers' institutes, etc., can not be defended from any 
point of view. 

The prompt and accurate rendering to the superin- 
tendent of all reports or records required by law is sim- 
ply a matter of common business morality. The super- 
intendent should never be laid under the necessity of 
making a second call for such returns. 

The Teacher and the Community. — It has already 

been urged that the teacher should come, as far as pos- 
sible, into friendly and familiar relations with the 
parents of his pupils, with the whole community in fact. 
But how shall this be done ? The old system of "board- 
ing around" practiced a generation or two ago in coun- 
try districts provided for this friendly contact in a very 



THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 81 

effective way. The teacher, in the course of his term, 
went into each household as a guest for a number of 
weeks proportionate to the number of school children 
in the family. The coming of the teacher to "board" 
was looked forward to as a social event, and the teacher 
was a wiser man after his visit and better qualified to do 
his best service to the children of that household. 

In order to achieve the full measure of influence and 
success, the teacher should live in the district or com- 
munity during term time. The teacher of a country 
school should not betake himself to foreign parts at the 
end of each day, or even week. The town girl who 
teaches in the country and bicycles home every after- 
noon can have, in the nature of the case, only a limited 
interest in and a limited vitality for the work for 
which she is employed. She should be, for the time at 
least, a resident and not a "carpet-bagger." 

Under our present-day conditions it is not always 
easy to cultivate a personal acquaintance with the peo- 
ple in their homes. But "the parents should be in- 
veigled into a closer acquaintance with the school than 
they will seek of their own motion. Special programs, 
school exhibitions in which many children take part, 
"parents' days," to which special invitations are given, 
are useful ways of securing this contact. All take time 
and labor, it is true, and are opposed by some teachers 
on the ground that they interfere with the regular 
progress of the school work. But that is a rather super- 
ficial view of the matter. Any device which will offer to 
parents a special occasion for visiting the school and 
seeing the teacher, as well as their own children, in 



82 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

action is worth, in indirect ways, all that it costs. And 
the efficient handling of such public or semi-public oc- 
casions tends to give the teacher a stronger hold of in- 
fluence on the school and its supporters. 

It is well, too, for the teacher to lend a hand, when- 
ever able, in the local activities of the community, e. g., 
in farmers' clubs and institutes, in musical organiza- 
tions and literary societies. The "spelling school' 7 was 
one of the agencies by which the old-time country teacher 
made the existence of himself and flock known to the 
country-side. But, of course, the teacher must not allow 
himself to be so loaded up with social service as to over- 
tax his time and strength to the detriment of his daily 
work in school. This regular daily work must always 
be first and foremost with the teacher ; and temptation 
to overindulgence in social activities and amusements 
must be conscientiously resisted. The teacher who 
lowers his stock of vital energy and consumes time 
needed for proper daily preparation for his school work 
injures himself professionally and wrongs the pupils 
entrusted to his ministrations. 

The Teacher and His Boarding Place.— The ma- 
jority of teachers must board away from home, and that 

is well. The teacher who "lives at home" may be for- 
tunate in the matter of physical comforts and freedom 
from the constraints which boarding-house life imposes ; 
but there are countervailing drawbacks which outweigh 
these advantages. It is especially unwise for the young 
and comparatively inexperienced teacher to teach in 
"the home school." Without attempting here to enum- 



THE TEACHER IN HIS RELATIONS 83 

erate all the reasons for this judgment, suffice it to men- 
tion the many temptations and demands of a social na- 
ture which heset the teacher living at home. Her family 
and her social set conspire to interfere with her pro- 
fessional duties and diminish the strength of her inter- 
est in her daily work. 

But to the teacher away from home the question of a 
suitable boarding-place is usually a serious one. And in 
country districts especially it is often difficult to secure 
a comfortable environment for the out-of-school hours. 
The teacher may sometimes have little or no choice as to 
his accommodations ; but, of course, it is highly desir- 
able to have quiet and comfortable quarters, in which 
work and study will not be interfered with. The family 
sitting-room is an utterly impracticable place in which 
to pass the evening hours, which are needed for the 
daily preparation. 

The teacher boarding in a family should carefully re- 
frain from obtrusiveness and from all manifestation 
of discontent or disrespect for his surroundings. He 
should adjust himself generally to the social environ- 
ment, and at the same time maintain a degree of dignity 
and self-respect suitable to his. responsible office in the 
community. Recognition of the family as his hosts, and 
consideration for their rights and preferences, should 
mark all his intercourse with them. He should care- 
fully refrain from any dogmatic or disputatious atti- 
tude or manner; in short, the teacher should be a gen- 
tleman in his boarding place as well as elsewhere. The 
discreet teacher, moreover, will carefully refrain from 
discussing in the family circle the shortcomings and 



84 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

peculiarities of individual pupils. The school history 
should not be rehearsed outside. 

It may be added that a hotel does not afford a suit- 
able environment for a teacher, especially a woman 
teacher. It should only be resorted to in case of abso- 
lute necessity. Better many discomforts in a home 
rather than the publicity and distractions of hotel life. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE TEACHER AND HIS TIME 

By this term, the teacher's time, is not meant simply 
its distribution among his daily duties, important as 
that is, but the larger allotment of his time and atten- 
tion. Assuming that the teacher is rightly ambitious^ 
that he really wishes to conquer success, that he is not 
content simply to draw his wages but means to rise in 
his profession, what will be his attitude with reference 
to the use of time? He will wish to keep himself in 
good condition physically, to enjoy the society and 
stimulus of kindred spirits, to discharge each day's 
duties efficiently and faithfully, and also to increase his 
intellectual and professional equipment for the work, 
to the end of a greater efficiency and a fuller recognition 
as an approved workman "that needeth not to be 
ashamed." 

During the hours of the school day, the school pro- 
gram will be the teacher's program, to which he must 
faithfully conform; but there still remain hours which 
he can not afford to pass in any haphazard fashion. 
They must be economized wisely. The next duty after 
the departure of his pupils had best be such clerical 
duties as devolve upon him, the writing up of the daily 
register first of all. Dr. Bagley has well said in his ex- 
cellent book on "Classroom Management" : 



86 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

"In every well regulated life there must be a time 
that is specifically allotted to all routine tasks. The 
teacher's hours of actual service are comparatively short 
— at most thirty hours each week for a maximum of 
forty weeks, or twelve hundred hours annually. In 
view of this fact it is not too much to expect that the 
teacher dispose of the necessary clerical work outside 
of the regular school hours. By far the best plan is to 
set aside the hour immediately following the close of the 
daily session for such work, and to keep reports and 
records up to date. The tendency to postpone clerical 
work until reports are called for is pernicious and should 
be strenuously combated from the outset." 

But this is only one of many items which the earnest 
teacher needs to consider in the proper organization 
and economy of his time. The remaining time before 
the evening meal may well be spent in the open air, in 
walking or outdoor games. 

Daily Preparation. — Doubtless, the most impor- 
tant and exigent duty which the teacher has to perform 
is that of planning the daily lessons and refreshing 
his mind on the subjects of instruction. This work is 
too important and laborious to be undertaken immedi- 
ately at the close of the daily session. As has already 
been urged, that is the appropriate time for making up 
the daily record of attendance, making out reports to 
parents or superintendent, and such like mechanical 
work. The wise teacher will also keep a daily journal, 
or log, of the more important happenings of the school, 
including mention of special events or exercises, visits, 



THE TEACHER AND HIS TIME 87 

accidents, etc. This is an almost universal custom 
among teachers in Great Britain, and is well worthy 
of imitation. 

But the work of lesson-planning and supplementary 
study should be reserved for the evening hours, after 
rest and refreshment. The correcting of written work 
and marking of test papers is also important work and 
ought not to be done perfunctorily nor in the hours of 
greatest fatigue. Such of this work as can properly be 
reserved for Saturday forenoons would best be done at 
such time. The teacher, however, should study to keep 
down the amount of this work within reasonable limits. 

Provision for Reading and Self Culture. — It may 

not be thought practicable for the teacher to set apart 
any definite portion of each day for reading, but cer- 
tainly some hours in each week should be religiously 
devoted to his mental nourishment. What, then, should 
the teacher plan definitely to read ? First, the news of 
the world. If he has not access to the metropolitan 
dailies, he should be a regular subscriber to some repu- 
table weekh T , like the Outlook or Independent, in which 
he may find careful summaries of the world's doings. 
This reading of the news may well occupy the hour be- 
fore supper if that time is not spent out of doors. 

Next, he should be a subscriber to at least two educa- 
tional journals, one his state journal, of whatever name, 
and the other a publication of national repute and pur- 
view. 

Thirdly, he should read some monthly magazine of 
high quality and tone, along with such books as he can 



88 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

command in the field of history and general literature. 
If it be protested that the teacher has not time for all 
this, the answer, absolutely true, is that this is wholly a 
matter of inclination, that every person can find the 
time for this, and more, if he only wills. Many teachers 
do much more. With regard to novel reading, it may 
be said that generally this may well be relegated to the 
summer vacation. 

The young teacher should commence the gathering 
of a professional library, beginning with some such 
books as Fitch's "Lectures on Teaching" and Arnold's 
"Waymarks for Teachers/' and adding at least one or 
two good volumes each year. He will need, however, to 
seek wise counsel in the selection, since much that passes 
as pedagogical literature is mere platitude. 

Professional Contact. — As has been said elsewhere, 
the teacher should not be a recluse. He needs social 
contact, but he also needs contact with others engaged 
in similar work, his fellow craftsmen. An effectual way 
of securing this is by frequent participation in teachers' 
associations, both local organizations and those of wider 
scope. In the local gatherings, he will become ac- 
quainted with his professional neighbors and get prac- 
tical hints, at least, for his own work. In the larger 
bodies, he will come under the stimulus of those higher 
in the profession and of wider fame, men and women 
chosen because of their power to awaken thought and 
stimulate discussion. The teacher will also be brought 
into contact with large themes, the greater problems of 
education. These may lie, in a measure, beyond or above 



THE TEACHEE AND HIS TIME 89 

the plane of his own immediate work ; but acquaintance 
with them is demanded as a condition of professional 
intelligence and culture. Moreover, the benefit received 
from "the program" will be fully equaled by that de- 
rived from personal and social contact between the ses- 
sions. In the hotel lobbies and elsewhere, he will be 
making desirable acquaintance, and he himself will be- 
come known to others. This mutual acquaintance be- 
tween teachers in the same state or district is of great 
advantage not only to the individuals concerned but also 
to the work at large. It tends to dignify and solidify 
the profession of teaching. The best outing of the year 
to a live teacher is the meeting of the State Associa- 
tion. 

School Visitation. — The teacher in active service 

has not much opportunity to visit other teachers at 
work ; but such possibilities as exist or can be created 
should be eagerly improved. Few experiences, if any, 
are as immediately valuable to the aspiring, ambitious 
young teacher as visits to schools where good work is be- 
ing done. Teachers are, unfortunately, prone to fall 
into ruts, or stereotyped ways of doing things, and a 
day's visit to a live school seldom fails to yield stimu- 
lating suggestions of better ways and quickened energy. 
A caution may well be given, however, to the visiting 
teacher. The visitor should be considerate of the order 
and regular ongoing of the visited school. It is far too 
common for the visitor, whether teacher or other, to 
assume special privileges and spend his time largely in 
personal conversation with pupils, to the neglect of any 



90 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

real observation of the work being done. Nothing can 
be more embarrassing and annoying to the teacher in 
charge than this inconsiderate trespassing on the order 
of the school and neglect of the true purpose of the visit, 
which thereby becomes a visitation rather. Neither 
should the visitor too freely interrupt the work with 
questions to the pupils, or other emphasizing of his 
presence. 

The Teacher's Sunday.— This discussion of the 
teacher's distribution of his time would undoubtedly 
be incomplete without some consideration of the wise 
and proper use of the weekly day of rest. Wholly ir- 
respective of his religious affiliations, there are certain 
habits which the wise teacher will aim to establish in 
himself. He will make, habitually, a clear distinction 
between Sunday and other days. If wise, he will array 
himself in better raiment than his workday clothes; 
that is the first step towards marking off the day from 
the working days of the week. If wise, he will never 
adopt the practice of marking written work or doing 
other school drudgery on what should be, in every sense, 
a day of physical and mental restoration. In justice 
to his pupils and his work, the teacher should bring 
to each Monday morning a refreshed and reinvigorated 
spirit. "Blue Monday" should never be allowed to in- 
vade the schoolroom. 

What the nature of the teacher's Sunday reading- 
should be his own best judgment must decide ; but it may 
safely be urged that it can not profitably be confined to 
the Sunday newspaper, that dropsical aggregation of the 



THE TEACHER AND HIS TIME 91 

sensational, the trite, and the laboriously useless. His 
reading, like the other exercises of the day, should at 
least tend towards his own edification and make him 
each week more fit than before for the guidance and 
inspiration of youth. 

It is sometimes argued that teachers ought not to allow 
themselves to be pressed into service as teachers in the 
Sunday school, since teaching engages their activities 
during all the rest of the week. But the soundness of 
this argument is at least open to question. The fact 
that teaching is the business for which the teacher has 
been trained and to which he is thoroughly habituated 
makes the work of teaching a Sunday class easier and 
more natural than it is to persons not accustomed to 
teaching. Undoubtedly, there are some cases where 
the teacher, as a matter of religious duty, assumes Sun- 
day labors which she can ill afford, physically, to carry ; 
but these cases are not frequent. It is the rare excep- 
tion where the teacher is in any way the worse for faith- 
fulness to religious obligations. 

The Teacher's Vacations. — The daily duties of the 
conscientious teacher are nerve-wearing work. They 
need to be relieved by suitable forms of recreation. The 
teacher, perhaps above others, needs some play time. 
This it is often difficult to find place for; but so far as 
possible it should be passed out of doors. At best, teach- 
ers get too little of the open air. From the teacher's 
standpoint, it seems a pity that croquet did not retain 
more permanently its one-time popularity. 

With city teachers, the theater is likely to be sought 



92 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

as .the mosi available resource for relaxation. But the 
late hours and emotional tension which it involves, to say 
nothing of the bad air, can scarcely be held to furnish 
real relaxation. The character of the nerve strain is 
simply varied, and the nerves are not rested. 

The summer vacation is the teacher's great oppor- 
tunity. Happy is the city teacher who has a country 
home, or who has friends living in the country with 
whom she can spend a time each year in country air 
and country quiet. But to the teacher who can afford 
to travel that is the most rational and profitable form 
of recreation; though its recreative value is impaired 
when taken in long itineraries in which the time is over- 
crowded with hurried sight-seeing. There is much so- 
called recreation which is more exhausting than regular 
work. But change of work sometimes serves the purpose 
of play ; work on a farm during the summer has afforded 
many a student and teacher a profitable form of recrea- 
tion. Mere idleness is seldom the best medicine for the 
tired teacher; let him rather seek some diversion which 
will occasion a cheerful but not severe activity of mind 
and body. 



CHAPTEE IX 

THE FIEST DAY OF SCHOOL 

To the veteran teacher in a city system, who has 
taught for years in perhaps the same grade and, it may 
be, the same room, the first day of a new term or year 
has no terrors. But to the young teacher starting in 
with her first school or with a new school, under new 
conditions, "the first day" is a notable and often very 
critical occasion. It is undoubtedly true that many a 
young teacher has lost ground in the first day or two 
with a new school which she was never able to regain. 
Many a poor teacher's failure was, all unknown to her 
perhaps, sealed in that first day's failure to grasp the 
situation and master it. It is important, therefore, that 
the tyro in teaching should be forearmed and well pre- 
pared for that first trial of strength. 

Before the Term Opens. — At some time before the 
term begins, the teacher should visit the district and 
thoroughly inspect the school premises. He should at 
that time invite the attention of the board to any needed 
repairs or renovation. This is where the teacher's ideas 
of what the school environment ought to be, and how it 
can be made what it ought to be, should have a practical 
result. At the time of this visit, he should secure the 
school records and take them home for a careful study 

93 



94 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

of the names and classification of former pupils. He 
should also study the previous daily programs, learn 
what text-books are used, and become somewhat familiar 
with them. 

The teacher who neglects all this work and depends 
on getting up all these facts on the opening morning, 
in the presence of waiting and curious young strangers, 
recklessly invites failure in advance. He should plan 
fully what he will do on the opening day, even if he 
has to modify his plans when the time comes. If the 
teacher lives at any considerable distance from the school 
he should come into the neighborhood on the preceding 
Saturday and spend Sunday there. It would never be 
wise to run any risk of a late and hurried arrival on 
Monday morning. The teacher should be, on that fate- 
ful morning, in the best of physical condition and free 
from weariness or worry. 

On the Opening Day. — -At what hour should the 

teacher arrive at the school ? The answer is easy : Before 
the first pupil. "Little Miss Espenet" left the Normal 
School, as an undergraduate, while she was still in 
short dresses. On the opening morning of her first term, 
she arrived at school before any of the children. She 
found the yard in disorder and at once set about clean- 
ing it up, picking up sticks, removing rubbish, etc. Each 
pupil, as he arrived on the scene, at once enlisted under 
her leadership % Before nine o'clock, the yard was nicely 
set to rights, the little teacher had, all unconsciously, 
established her leadership, and had made a good begin- 
ning towards personal acquaintance with her pupils. 



THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 95 

TIacc fabula docet that the \>ay to leadership is through 
well directed action. 

But if the school yard should chance to be already in 
perfect order, then what? Set the schoolroom in readi- 
ness. Perhaps it may be sweeping and dusting that is 
needed. Then take the opportunity to open acquaintance 
with each pupil as he arrives. When the opening hour 
comes, call the school to order promptly on time. Domt 
wait for more to come. Stand at the door and oversee 
the coming in of any who were outside. 

At the outset will come the problem of seating. Some 
of the children will have come early with a special view 
to the choice of seats, and their choice may not at all be 
yours, with farther acquaintance. It is well to pre-empt 
the situation by saying, "You may take such seats as 
you see fit this morning until I am ready to seat you in 
a different order.*' That is, indicate gently but plainly 
that the permanent seating will be arranged later on. 
If this preliminary seating is allowed to continue for a 
day or two. the teacher may discover some facts which 
will be useful in determining the rearrangement advis- 
able. 

Start Work at Once. — First, use some form of 
opening exercise, which should have been thought out 
definitely beforehand. It will not be well to consume 
much time in any individual enrollment. If that is 
thought necessary, pass slips of paper, prepared before- 
hand, and have the pupils who are able to write enter 
their names with such other data as may be desired. 
Then, using a tentative program, start work at once, and 



96 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

keep things moving. Unoccupied time is the worst thing 
that can happen to the children on this first morning. 
For this tentative program, the program of the previous 
term may be used if the previous teacher has performed 
her duty by leaving it on record. This may well enough 
be used on the second day also, while the new program 
is in the process of incubation. 

All this time the teacher should be very alert and ob- 
servant in the "sizing up" of individual pupils, studying 
their temperament, their stage of advancement, and 
their apparent capacity. The first day is no time for 
dreaming nor for indecision. The recess periods and 
dismissions should occur promptly at the proper time; 
and the teacher should give attention to the doings of 
the children during the recesses. When the day is done, 
the teacher may then sit down to review the events of 
the clay and consider what things have been neglected 
or overlooked, and plan the campaign for the next day. 
If she has been master of herself and has kept things 
going, she need have no misgivings or fears as to her 
further success. 

For the Week Following. — The following sugges- 
tions for the week or two following the beginning of 
work with a new school will be found worthy of atten- 
tion by the teacher who is anxious to insure success. 

(a) It is a good plan to have the names of all the 
pupils written on a sheet of paper or large card, in the 
order of their seating in the several rows, and kept on 
the teacher's desk, where it can easily be consulted. It 
means much to children to be called by their names, and 



THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 97 

the teacher should acquire the ability to do this as early 
as possible. 

(b) Much of the work in the first week or two should 
be a review of what was covered in the previous term, 
but it should contain some element of newness to sus- 
tain interest. Nothing could be worse than to assign a 
large number of pages from the book of the previous 
year with any expectation that it will be properly studied 
by the pupils. Almost every motive for real study will 
be lacking. 

(c) The work should be carefully planned and as- 
signed. There should be something definite to be done 
by every pupil in each lesson. The assignment should 
be wisely measured as to amount; and then the pupils 
should be held responsible for performance. The teacher 
should watch carefully, and with tact and quiet firmness 
resist the beginnings of idleness, inattention, and dis- 
order. It is always easier to assert and maintain con- 
trol from the start than it is to recover mastery after 
the school has slipped into disorderly habits or insub- 
ordination. 

(d) Observe and study the pupils individually to 
discover their moral characteristics and, if possible, the 
causes of their weaknesses. As early as possible identify 
those individuals who are most likely to make trouble. 
Get acquainted with them, study their dispositions, and 
try to gain their co-operation by assigning them special 
duties, as your assistants, so to speak, in the care of the 
schoolroom and its belongings, the school grounds, and 
outbuildings. 

(e) Begin at the outset to keep a record of the work 



9g SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

done, of where each class begins, and any other facts 
which may be of use in making out reports at the end 
of the term or year. It is well also, as the time goes on, 
to keep a record of visitors, official and other, of any 
public exercises or special events, in short, a sort of 
diary of the school year. 

(f ) Do not allow yourself to speak slightingly of the 
work of your predecessor. Of course he was not perfect ; 
and it is probable that your successor may find some 
opportunity for criticism. In any case, such criticism 
can do no good and is likely to excite needless antagon- 
ism. 



CHAPTEE X 

THE PROGRAM 

What Need of a Fixed Daily Program?— Why 

should it be thought necessary to formulate a stated, in- 
flexible order of exercises to be imposed on each day's 
work? Why not leave the length and succession of 
exercises to be determined by the conditions of the hour ? 
To which the answer might well be, "Why have clocks at 
all ? Why not leave meal times to the caprice or tempo- 
rary convenience of the cook?" How would it work if 
railroad trains had no fixed schedules but "ran wild" 
at the pleasure of the engineers ? 

The purposes of a definite school program, closely ad- 
hered to, may be stated as follows : 

(a) To prevent waste and secure a proper distribu- 
tion of time. 

(b) That pupils may know what to expect and when. 
The first fact to be recognized is a psychological one. 

Each person, or child, has in each day of his life a lim- 
ited amount of disposable energy. He may not use all 
of this — usually does not — but he can not use more. 
This energy may, it is true, be used in spurts of concen- 
tration with intervals of relaxation between ; but there is 
also a limit, especially in children, to these periods of 
concentration. This varies with different ages, being 
low in young children but increasing with the age and 
development of the child. Through the common experi- 



100 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

ence of teachers these limits have become tolerably well 
defined. It is also well understood that attention can 
not be forced beyond these limits. Fortunately for the 
child, he has the power of instinctively protecting him- 
self from any attempt to overstep the bounds. He sim- 
ply lets go, and ceases to attend. Or if, by superior 
skill or strategy, he is led to efforts beyond this natural 
limit, he will recoup himself afterwards by prolonging 
his relaxation, which the teacher is sometimes tempted 
to dub laziness or stupidity. 

An Illustration. — The writer once saw an old-time 

schoolmaster, a man of sixty with shaggy hair and over- 
hanging eyebrows, teaching a grammar lesson to a sixth 
grade class of boys in the city schools of Atlanta. The 
old man was master of his subject. Every question hit 
the bull's eye. The boys were bright and alert, and he 
kept them literally "on the jump" for sixty minutes. 
He undoubtedly had, somewhere, a daily program, but 
it had no restraining power over his enthusiasm. He 
would have said, perhaps, that he was trying to strike 
while the iron was hot, and he did. But at the end of 
the hour both he and the boys were overdone. They 
were worth little for the rest of the half day; and the 
other subjects of the morning program had been ex- 
cluded or robbed of their due share of time and mental 
energy. This instance has probably been paralleled 
"many a time and oft," but it may well serve as an ex- 
ample of the need of a proper proportion of work and a 
due recognition of the attention-limits of the pupils 
themselves. 



THE PEOGKAM 101 

The Limits of Attentive Power. — What, then, are 
these attention-limits, which it is not wise or economical 
to transgress or ignore? Without attempting, at this 
point, any scientific discussion of the matter, suffice it 
to say that no class of children in the first two years of 
school life should ever be held to an exercise of more 
than fifteen minutes in duration, while no recitation in 
the grammar grades (7th and 8th) should exceed thirty- 
five minutes, or forty at the utmost. In high schools, 
perhaps the usual limit for ordinary lessons is forty-five 
minutes. It certainly should not be more. 

The Pupil's Right to a Program. — Children at 
play have no program; they follow the impulse of the 
moment, and they have no sense of time. But work, 
even for children, is a different matter. The pupil needs 
to have before him a definite and intelligible indication 
of the time when he will be called upon to render results 
or the results will not be forthcoming. Which means 
that a definite study program is no less needful than a 
mere schedule of class exercises. 

It is well that this definite mapping out of the activi- 
ties of the school clay should become incorporated into 
each pupil's mind as a habit, so that he will be guided 
by the mere routine and succession of daily events. 
When this has been accomplished, he will no longer need 
to watch the posted schedule, nor even the clock; but 
the teacher will never get beyond this need of keeping 
an eye on her timepiece to save her from irregularity. 

Need of a Study Program. — The adult pupils need 
the guidance and help of a study program no less than 



102 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

the younger ones. The defense continually offered by 
students, and by persons in daily life, for delinquency 
in performance of duties is, "I didn't have time," which 
is in the majority of cases a false plea. There was plenty 
of time if it had been rightly economized. So much time 
is lost by dawdling, by faulty distribution of energy, by 
lack of forethought and system, that there seems to have 
been a dearth of time itself. A definite program of study 
and work will, of course, be the result of forethought, it 
will embody system, it will prevent easy-going waste of 
time, and so multiply the efficiency and productiveness 
of the pupils' efforts. Pupils should therefore be held 
to a reasonably close observance of its provisions. 

The Making of the Program. — How, then, shall 

the teacher go about the making of the permanent pro- 
gram ? If she is a city teacher with perhaps but a single 
grade in her room, the problem will be comparatively 
easy; but to the teacher of a country school, or of per- 
haps three grades in a small village, the situation is 
quite different. Let us, therefore, consider the matter 
from the standpoint of the one-room country school. 

The first step is to determine definitely the number 
of classes necessary in the various subjects. Then deter- 
mine which of these classes should recite more than once 
a day. For instance, the beginners' class, not being able 
to make use of books in study, must receive more fre- 
quent attention from the teacher. Their lines of work 
are not yet much differentiated, and learning to read is 
their main activity. Will it be too much, then, other 
demands permitting, to call this class four times a day 



THE PEOGEAM 103 

instead of once or twice ? If, at the other extreme, there 
are any classes which can not be heard every day of the 
school week, that fact should be noted. 

We now have the data for determining the total num- 
ber of daily exercises, or "recitations". The maximum 
number, which should never be exceeded, is twenty-two. 
We reach this result in the following way: There are, 
by established custom, six hours in the school day. Set 
out two recess periods of fifteen minutes each, and we 
have left five and one-half hours, or 330 minutes. As- 
suming fifteen minutes as the minimum average time 
for each exercise, we have as a quotient twenty-two such 
periods in the day. 

But in assuming an average length of fifteen minutes 
for all the exercises of the day, we still have to apportion 
the time to each exercise according to its nature and 
necessity. We shall find it necessary to establish a maxi- 
mum limit, which in the mixed country school can not 
be placed at more than twenty-five minutes. 

The Order of Recitations. — It yet remains to de- 
termine the proper arrangement, or order, of recitations. 
But this can not be successfully accomplished without 
taking into account the whole question of study, the 
pupil's preparation for the recitation. 

(a) What class shall be called first, in the morning? 
If any class is of such age, or in such a subject, as will 
admit of home study, that particular class may properly 
be called first to recitation. If home study can not be 
counted on, the first class called should be one so young 
as to be incapable of "study," and therefore ready to 
face the teacher at any time. 



104 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(b) Another guiding principle is that of a proper 
alternation between recitation and study. This does 
not mean, however, that a class having studied a lesson, 
or assignment, should make haste to recite it immedi- 
ately. It is well for the student, if practicable, to keep 
the lesson "on his stomach" for a time before being 
called upon to regurgitate it. 

Other guiding principles are these : 

(c) That work which calls for the closest mental ap- 
plication should be placed in that part of the day when 
the powers are freshest and most vigorous. There seems 
to be general agreement that memory flags first, that is, 
that memorizing is the most exhausting of mental oper- 
ations. The reflective powers retain their energy some- 
what longer. 

(d) Those exercises which call for less energy of atten- 
tion and involve most of muscular activity should be 
reserved for those parts of the day when the mind is 
disposed to flag. Exercises which have to be written 
out fall under this description. 

If the teacher has been able to keep in mind these 
four rules during the arrangement of his recitation pro- 
gram, it will then be an easy matter to annex the study 
program, and all that remains will be to put it into a 
compact tabular form for posting and for entering in the 
school records. 

The Grading of Country Schools. — These several 
steps in the making of a country school program, viz., 
the determination of the number of classes and recita- 
tions, the proper allotment of time to each, and the 



THE PROGKAM 105 

discovery of the right order or arrangement of exer- 
cises, bring us naturally to the question of possible 
grading, or classification, in rural schools. In not a 
few states, like Wisconsin and Illinois, this subject has 
engaged serious attention for many years. The Wis- 
consin plan, promulgated as early as 1882, proposed the 
division of the country school course into three divi- 
sions, or zones, which were denominated the" Lower, 
Middle, and Upper Forms, these terms corresponding 
in a general way with the terms Primary, Intermediate, 
and Grammar Grades as applied to graded schools. 

This plan contemplated that the child should be held 
to all the work of the lower form before being allowed to 
enter upon the work of the middle form, and so on. 
This, of course, was great gain, as it operated to pre- 
vent the pupil from becoming lopsided through neglect 
of essential studies and undue attention to others. 

In late years, there has been a tendency among some 
teachers to go yet farther in the matter of classifica- 
tion and, so, to attempt the making of an eight-grade 
program for the country school instead of a three-form 
one. This tendency does not seem, on the whole, to be 
a wise one, though it may sometimes be possible or ad- 
visable to classify more closely than the three-form plan 
proposes. 

By way of suggestion, a sample program is here 
given, one on the three-form plan. 



106 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 
PROGRAM 



Recitation 



Study 



Opening Exercises 

2d, 3d, & 5th Eeaders 



9:00 

9:10 1st Eeader 

9:20 Beginners 

9:30 5th Eeader or Classics B. Arith., C. Seat work. 

9:50 2d Eeader A. & B. Arith. 

10:00 3d Eeader " " 

10:15 B. Arith. A. & C. Arith. 



10:35 
10:50 
11:10 
11:20 
11:30 
11:45 

12:00 
1:00 
1:10 
1:20 
1:30 
1:50 
2:10 
2:20 

2:30 
2:45 
3:00 
3:10 
3:30 
3:50 

4:00 



A. Arith. 
C. Arith. 
Beginners 

B. Lauguage 
A. Language 



Eecess 

C. Arith., B. Lang. 
A. & B. Lang. 

A. Lang., B. Geog. 

B. Geography- 
Intermission 

2d Eeader, A. & B. Geog. 



1st Eeader 
Beginners 
2d Eeader 

B. Geography 

A. Geog. or History 

C. Language 

B. Spelling 

Writing 

Eecess 
Beginners Agric. & Hygiene, 4th Eead. 

Agriculture & Hygiene 4th Eeader 
4th Eeader A. Spelling 

A. Spelling B. Arithmetic 

Dismission 



A. Geography & C. Lang. 

B. Spelling, C. Lang. 
Agriculture & Hygiene 

" " C. 

work 



Seat 



CHAPTEK XI 

INCENTIVES TO STUDY 

The teacher being duly installed, in a suitable environ- 
ment, with his work properly planned and under way, 
the next consideration is that of motives to keep the 
work in progress. First, of course, come the teacher's 
motives, those inner springs which keep him up to his 
best work. The love of activity, the sense of duty, pride 
in good work, professional spirit and ambition, the de- 
sire to wield influence over growing minds, all these 
conspire, in the real teacher, to invigorate effort and 
preclude failure. But our problem here is that of 
motive in the pupils. On what motives may we prop- 
erly and successfully rely to keep pupils up to the work 
in a way to produce the results we seek ? 

The Gamut of School Incentives. — What do we 

mean by the term "motive" ? The etymology of the 
word furnishes the key;/motive is that which moves us, 
which incites to action. Now the antecedent of action, 
if we except the purely reflex movements, is feeling of 
some sort. Motives are feelings. But feelings have a 
great variety of type and quality, ranging from the 
bodily sensations to the esthetic and moral sentiments. 
The motives, therefore, to which the teacher must appeal 
may be graded or arranged in a sort of gamut or scale. 
At the bottom of this scale, we may place : 

107 



108 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(1) The Dread of Physical Pain. This fear of pain, 
or dislike of being hurt, is the old, time-honored motive 
on which the schoolmaster in past ages has mainly re- 
lied. Its application is so easy and it so chimes in with 
the animal impulse to inflict suffering that its inferior- 
ity as an incentive was long overlooked or ignored.' It 
is scarcely half a century since its efficacy or propriety 
began to be questioned. The ancient proverb, "Spare 
the rod and spoil the child", was thought to be an ex- 
pression of wisdom divinely sanctioned; the mistake lay 
in taking it too literally. 

In much later days, a famous English Headmaster 
whose pupils had exceptional success in passing the ex- 
aminations at the Universities, was importuned by his 
less successful rivals to tell them his secret. "I have 
no secret; I whip them and they learn", was his sen- 
tentious reply] Scotch dominies famed for skill as edu- 
cators have relied greatly on "the tawse' ? as an intel- 
lectual and moral stimulant. But whatever may be 
thought of physical pain as a moralizing agency through 
its effect on conduct, it seems wholly unaccountable 
that it should so long have been held as the chief in- 
centive to intellectual effort and application. ) 

(2) The Fear of Mental Pain. The nerve ends of 
the skin are not the only primal source of childish suf- 
fering. So a substitute for the rod has often been found 
in the infliction of mental pain, shame, chagrin, the 
wounding of pride and self-respect, by means of scold- 
ing, ridicule, or sarcasm. There are children of the 
stolid type to whom such stimuli are not altogether 
injurious; on the other hand, there is a large class of 



INCENTIVES TO STUDY 109 

super-sensitive children, of delicate nervous organization, 
to whom such inflictions are the height of cruelty, and 
paralyzing in their effect. 

Just and well-tempered reproof is often necessary 
and wholesome; but scolding, which implies a degree 
of irritation and temper, usually provokes an attitude of 
resistance and obstinacy or retaliation on the part of 
the pupil. It is not contended that the teacher shall 
always be sweet and complaisant in the face of miscon- 
duct. Even Divinity is sometimes thought to wear "a 
frowning face"; and the teacher needs to have at least 
a capacity for righteous indignation. The child often 
gets his clearest idea of the moral quality of his action 
by the energy of disapproval which it excites. The 
essential thing is that the teacher, in reproof, shall be 
always master of himself and not the victim of weak 
nerves and a fretful habit. The infliction of mental 
pain is one step higher in the scale, in refinement, than 
that of physical pain; but it is often more dangerous 
and more liable to misuse. But we should remember 
that we are not here discussing pain as penalty or pun- 
ishment, but its use to stimulate pupils to greater and 
more continuous mental effort. There is a wide differ- 
ence between motive and penalty. 

(3) Love of Approbation. We reach a point here 
where pain as an incentive gives place to pleasure. The 
love of approval is a universal human instinct, shared 
even by man's most faithful servitor, the dog. But there 
are different forms, or strata, so to speak, of this desire. 

(a) Fondness for praise. The simple delight in 
praise is the lowest and most universal form. Mere 



HO SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

praise appeals, after all, to our selfish nature, to our 
vanity and self-conceit. It tends withal to strengthen 
these feelings, and therefore has its dangers. Every- 
thing in the nature of flattery, insincere or excessive 
praise, should be sedulously avoided by the teacher. 
These, while convenient stimuli for the accomplishment 
of certain purposes, tend only to the cultivation of ego- 
tism and an overweening self-estimation, a dangerous 
exaggeration of one's own importance. 

The child should never be praised for that which is 
only a matter of natural endowment and not the result 
of his own will or effort, as personal beauty, strength, or 
even talent. He should no more be praised for these 
than those less fortunately endowed should be blamed 
for their defects or deformities. What should be praised 
is honest effort rather than achievement. It is safe to 
say that cordial recognition of industry and faithful 
endeavor can never do harm, and it is only simple justice 
that it be given. 

Much amiable talk has been expended on the propo- 
sition that pupils must be praised for their encourage- 
ment. It has been assumed, rather superficially, that 
praise and encouragement are synonymous. We have 
seen, and may well recall, that many children are vain 
and crave praise as a confirmation of their self -estimate. 
There is another large class of children who are timid, 
wanting in aggressiveness, and lacking in self-confi- 
dence. They need the stimulus of conquest, and suc- 
cumb easily to the discouragement of failure, or even 
partial failure. To such pupils, all possible apprecia- 
tion should be given, the praise due to effort, and the 



INCENTIVES TO STUDY m 

recognition of thoughtfulness where found. Sympathy, 
personal interest, and helpful suggestion will all help 
towards the establishment of greater self-confidence and 
persistence. 

(b) The desire to please or win regard. We have 
here a motive of really higher order than mere love of 
praise. It is not vanity which underlies this, but some- 
thing more akin to respect and affection. A right- 
minded child will put forth effort in a direction which 
he knows to be pleasing to his parents because of his 
affection for them. Whom we love we would therefore 
please. Affection towards a teacher will go far towards 
inducing the effort to please, and not simply to please 
but to command regard in return. Here we reach, for 
the first, a plane of motive which is altogether safe 
and wholesome. And that teacher will have great ad- 
vantage in his daily work whose character and sympa- 
thies are such as to command confidence and admira- 
tion. We may recognize the fact, also, that whatever 
calls forth admiration on the part of the pupil will 
increase his desire to please. That is one reason why 
the teacher should cultivate such personal carriage, such 
manners, such habits of tidiness and good taste in dress 
as will command this admiration. Akin to this, is the 
influence exerted by a man teacher who is expert in 
athletics and yet bears himself as a gentleman. 

(4) Love of Superiority. Under the general term 
love of superiority, we have, again, several related types 
of feeling which need, after all, to be clearly discrimi- 
nated by the teacher. Endeavoring to begin with the 



112 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

lowest type, most closely allied to the animal impulses, 
we may name : 

(a) The desire to "beat" others. The desire to ex- 
hibit power, to display or demonstrate one's physical 
strength and prowess, the ambition to outstrip others 
in any line of endeavor simply to win attention and rec- 
ognition is, perhaps, only one form of the animal im- 
pulse of combat. A man strives or even fights for the 
mere joy of struggle and victory. This impulse would be 
less dangerous if it could be wholly divested of its 
usual accompaniment, the disposition to exult over the 
defeated or distanced rival. This propensity to "crow" 
over, or hector, the vanquished is so selfish and cruel in 
spirit that parents and teachers need always to be on the 
alert to check its manifestation. 

(b) Ambition: rivalry. We sometimes say of a boy 
or man that he has no ambition, by which we mean that 
he is content to remain in a position of inferiority or 
insignificance. He has not that healthy love of struggle 
and desire for personal advancement which cause men 
to put forth their best energies in the business of life. 
We sometimes, again, say of a youth that he has not yet 
"waked up" or found himself. 

Rivalry is perhaps a feeling of lower and earlier de- 
velopment than ambition. It makes its earliest appear- 
ance in connection with sports, where, at first, it is 
scarcely removed from what we have called the desire 
to beat. The danger is, of course, that its undue in- 
dulgence will develop the braggart and the bully. But 
this feeling, at its best, is so potent and effectual a 
motive force that the teacher can not well refrain from 



INCENTIVES TO STUDY 113 

utilizing it. The main thing is that it shall be employed 
wisely, seeking to induce not an inordinate ambition or 
unscrupulous rivalry, the danger in public sports, but a 
healthful emulation. 

Various devices have been adopted in schools for the 
stimulation of scholarly ambition, such as report cards 
and "rolls of honor" posted in the schoolroom or pub- 
lished in the local newspaper. Some educators seem to 
have fallen into a state of needless alarm with reference 
to the effect of these devices, and, indeed, with reference 
to the giving out of standings, or grade marks, at all. 
It is sometimes alleged that under this system pupils 
come to work only for "standings" and not for under- 
standing. Serious if true, but it may be doubted whether 
such a charge ever represents the real truth. At any 
rate, the pupil who does not care what his standings are 
or what estimate his teacher has been able to place upon 
his work is certainly not a very hopeful candidate for 
culture. There may be but two or three pupils in a 
class who have the laudable ambition to lead the class, 
but there will be many who wish to maintain at least a 
decent rank, and who will be spurred to renewed effort 
by the sting of a low standing or the encouragement of 
a high one. 

(c) The desire to increase in power, to excel one's 
self. We need to recognize here that higher form of 
ambition, the desire to excel one's self, to break one's 
own record. While with many the desire to exercise 
power, to dominate others, is a ruling passion, there is 
also with many, if not all, an intense satisfaction in the 
mere consciousness of the possession of power, whether 



114 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

exercised or not. On this foundation, it is wise to build, 
if possible, that desire for greater personal value which 
we may call Aspiration. This implies as its object some 
power or condition felt to be above one's present con- 
dition, the striving after which is uplifting or ennobling. 
In the kindling of this sentiment we have perhaps the 
highest work of the teacher, and with this incentive we 
rise, again, to a higher plane of motive. ) 

(5) Desire for Knowledge for its Practical Value. 
We reach now an incentive less instinctive, more rational 
and calculating, than those thus far considered, the 
desire for knowledge through a belief in its future 
utility, as a means of getting on in the world. This 
may be called the commercial or utilitarian motive. 
The pupil is under the rule of a remote and rational 
interest instead of an immediate and sensuous one. 
While the motive is a self -regarding one, it neverthe- 
less lies, so to speak, on an intellectual plane. 

This motive, or desire, as it operates with pupils in 
school, even in the high school, is rather indefinite. 
The child may look upon education as the indispensable 
means to advancement and success in life, and yet he 
does not picture very clearly any particular way in 
which this is to happen. With many parents, the whole 
estimate of education hinges on its utility in the direc- 
tion of better wages, the making of money. With the 
youth himself, the ideal may not be so mercenary. His 
attitude may find expression in the declamation, "I 
want to be somebody". And many parents have said, 
"I don't wish my children to have as hard a time in life 
as I had". Thus, both in home and school, the prac- 



INCENTIVES TO STUDY 115 

tical utility of education, and consequently of diligence 
in study, is more often held up before the mind of youth 
than any other motive. 

(6) The Love of Knowledge for its Own Sake. We 
come here to a still higher level of motive, the desire for 
knowledge as a source of high satisfaction in itself, with- 
out regard to practical results, either in wealth, power, 
or reputation. Curiosity is a natural instinct of the 
human mind, and finds its most active manifestation 
in the young child, who seems continually oppressed by 
"the pains of ignorance". This instinct may be so neg- 
lected or misused as to finally concern itself only with 
the petty personal details of neighborhood life, the curi- 
osity of the common gossip. If properly directed and 
stimulated, on the other hand, it may be developed into 
one of the noblest attributes of the human soul, the 
passion for truth. The gossip represents an aborted 
type of curiosity; the zeal for the discovery of truth 
which characterizes the scientist and philosopher stands 
at the other extreme of a fully developed intellectual 
appetite. 

The wise teacher will employ every means to stimu- 
late this appetite and commend to the pupil the pure 
joy of understanding. Merely to know great scientific 
truths, the reasons of the universe, all apart from any 
practical advantage, the ability to appreciate the glow- 
ing images and inspired metaphors of poetry, the pos- 
session of the keys to human history and progress, 
raise one above the common herd and make him truly a 
man, created in the image of God, whose greatest func- 
tion is to know. 



116 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

This, then, is the culture motive. In every child, the 
desire to understand is strong; hut later on in the 
school career it seems to lose its force or to attach itself 
only to trivial objects. What is it that has happened? 
Some one has coined the phrase, "the artificial produc- 
tion of stupidity in schools". Who is responsible for 
this atrophy of curiosity? Is it not the teachers who 
base their appeals on the lower motives and who do 
little to illustrate in themselves the pure joy of knowing? 

(7) The Desire to be of Greater Service to Mankind. 
From the culture motive, the desire for greater breadth 
and depth of intellectual experience, one step more 
brings us to the top of our scale in the philanthropic, 
or altruistic, motive, the desire to qualify ourselves for 
more efficient service to our fellow-men. It has been 
a matter of discussion whether this motive is really of 
a higher order than the culture motive; but as it adds 
the ethical quality without necessarily subtracting any- 
thing from the keenness of intellectual appetite, it may 
justly claim to the noblest, if not always the strongest, 
incentive to study. 

Even the scientist in his eager pursuit of truth is 
all the more a scientist if he is moved by a desire to 
alleviate the miseries or increase the comforts of life. 
Pasteur, Lister, Koch, Edison even, have devoted their 
lives to exhaustive research equally moved by the love 
of truth and the love of mankind. But we need not 
go so far for examples of the vitality of this motive. 
Every divinity student toiling in the seminary to pre- 
pare himself for more effective service as a fisher of 
men illustrates its presence and power. 



INCENTIVES TO STUDY H7 

It need hardly be said that this altruistic motive is 
not one that can be appealed to in early years. It is 
not until adolescence, the age of heroic impulses, is 
opening up that the ideal of service can have great 
moving power. And so, the teacher, having a clear 
consciousness of all the planes of motive, their place 
and their potency, must strive to employ that one, or 
such ones, as can be most successfully invoked in the 
given case and at the given age. The greatest achieve- 
ment of the teacher will consist in kindling the pupil's 
will into harmony with his own purpose, so that he 
shall conspire freely and gladly towards the end of his 
own spiritual enfranchisement. 



CHAPTER XII 
MORAL TRAINING 

At various points in the preceding chapters, it has 
been assumed that the formation of character should 
be a leading object, if not the overshadowing purpose, 
of the teacher's endeavor. If a worthy and stable moral 
character has not been developed, intellectual acquisi- 
tions and acuteness may prove to be a source of danger 
to society rather than of benefit. The educated rascal 
is no legitimate fruit of public education. The teacher 
must, therefore, always and unweariedly study by what 
means this meed of character may result from his labors. 

The Great Problem. — This is, after all, the great- 
est problem of the educator, How shall the school ac- 
complish its high aim of character-building? No ques- 
tion at the present time is engaging more earnest and 
anxious thought on the part of not only teachers but all 
thinkers interested in the right direction of education. 
There is no difference of opinion as to the end; but 
there is much diversity of judgment and much per- 
plexity as to the proper means. 

The Essential Conditions or Constituents of Char- 
acter. — For the development of character, three 
factors or constituents are essential; first, the genesis 
of right and inspiring ideals; second, the activity of 
will involved in yielding allegiance to these ideals ; third, 
the consolidation of right impulse and resolve into 

118 



MOEAL TRAINING 119 

habit. High ideals and a good will flowering into habit, 
these are the ends sought in moral training. 

The Creation of Ideals. — First, then, how shall 
worthy and uplifting ideals be infused into the minds 
and hearts of youth? All such ideals are a result of 
the conjunction of intelligence, imagination, and sensi- 
bility. The idiot, the savage, the dolt, the untrained 
yokel are shut out from the possibility of high ideals 
by lack of knowledge — knowledge of the possibilities of 
human life — and lack of the ethical imagination, ability 
to image higher planes of thought and action. The 
youthful mind must, by every possible means, be moved 
and stimulated towards a true conception of the per- 
fect man, the ideal life; which will induce the longing 
of aspiration, and vital effort towards at least its partial 
realization. If the youth can not be quickened into 
admiration of the good and morally heroic, education 
must be accounted a failure in his case. For such ad- 
miration, kindling discontent with his own present self, 
is the first step towards the goal of character. All the 
teaching of the school should help in this direction, but 
especially that in history and literature, through their 
portrayal of the leaders of the race and the ideal char- 
acters created by novelist and poet. 

But the most immediate agency of all in this direc- 
tion will be found in the personality of the forceful 
and worthy teacher. The first and highest requisite, 
then, for moral inspiration is that the teacher shall be 
in his own life and character that which he wishes his 
pupils to become. The matter of the teacher's moral 



120 SCHOOL, MANAGEMENT 

standards and habits becomes, therefore, of the most 
vital importance to all charged with the selection and 
appointment of teachers. 

The Cultivation of Moral Judgment. — It was said 
above that high ideals are a combined result of intelli- 
gence, imagination, and sensibility. By intelligence is 
meant, first, such knowledge of life and its issues, of 
the natural and inevitable consequences of certain modes 
of life and conduct, as will furnish the basis for rational 
choice between objects of desire and lines of action, 
and for the exercise of self-restraint and the inhibition 
of dangerous and unworthy impulses. Secondly, the 
term must include the power and habit of deliberation 
and reflection upon the far-reaching consequences of 
action, even that which may seem at the time trivial, 
and the ability to "see # straight" as a result of such 
deliberation. In other words, the training of the judg- 
ment to caution and clear insight in dealing with moral 
questions, whether related to one's own personal be- 
havior or to the problems of society, is a most impor- 
tant factor in character building. Here, again, all good 
teaching, which must aim always towards the cultiva- 
tion of accurate judgment and clear conception, will 
conduce towards the development of sound moral judg- 
ments. The unconscious outcome of really good in- 
struction and its constant demand for thoughtfulness 
and critical analysis, is not likely to be overestimated. 
On the other hand, the moral mischief engendered by 
loose, superficial, or inaccurate teaching is correspond- 
ingly great and insidious, 



MORAL TRAINING 1#1 

Character and Habit. — Matthew Arnold has given 

wide currency to the apothegm that character is three- 
fourths conduct. It might be added with perhaps 
equal truth that conduct is three-fourths habit. Right 
habit is the rudder of a worthy life, holding it true to 
its chosen course. It is right habit which saves us 
from the perversity of sudden impulse and moral acci- 
dent; and equally is it true that wrong habit imposes 
that slavery to evil impulse and appetite whose chains 
are strong as links of steel. 

It is beyond the power of the child to know or com- 
prehend what habits it is for his eternal interest to 
form; his view of life is too limited. The teacher, un- 
aided, might also be at a loss as to what habits he 
ought to make a point of establishing. But society, or 
the common judgment of civilized men, has very largely 
settled that question, and the problem of what habits 
are good and what are injurious need not occasion the 
educator any great perplexity. It is the process of 
liabit-forming which needs his most careful attention. 

First, the inculcation of desirable habits must begin 
early, while the brain is still in a plastic state. Forma- 
tion is easier than reformation; and some of the most 
important habits must be established so early that the 
duty belongs to the home rather than the school. The 
primary teacher comes next, and upon her more than 
on any of her successors fall the burden and the duty 
of habit-training. Personal habits merely physical, so 
far as any habit can be purely physical, manners, pos- 
tures, the manipulation of muscles as in the holding of 
the pen, language habits, and the more specifically 



122 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

moral habits, such as kindness, truthfulness, obedience, 
etc., all fall to the primary teacher as her most impor- 
tant field of attention and effort. Watchfulness, pa- 
tience, unwearied perseverance, and the stimulating 
force of an admirable personality, all are needful in 
this new mother whom we call the primary teacher. 

In what we call the intermediate grades, however, we 
come upon a new plane of habit-training. Here, with 
the greater development of memory and language power 
and the advent of text-books, we find a new field for 
the same watchfulness, patience, and persistence. Here, 
the chief work of the pupil is the formation of a host 
of intellectual habits. The multiplication table, for 
instance, must become a habit. The proper holding of 
the pen in writing, for an example of a different sort, 
demands a degree of insistence on the part of the teacher 
which it unfortunately seldom receives. Such habits as 
the uniform crossing of fs and dotting of is should be 
made a matter of conscience until the habit becomes 
firm enough to render volition unnecessary. So with 
all the habits which finally give ease and accuracy in 
the use of both spoken and written language. And 
the teacher should understand and remember that this 
unwearied vigilance and persistence in the enforcing 
right practice to the end of right habits, is no small 
part, and an indispensable part, of moral training. 

The Forming of the Will. — But, so far, we have 
been only skirting around the center of the great prob- 
lem of moral education. We come now, of necessity, 
to the core of the problem. Between ideals, on the one 



MORAL TRAINING 123 

hand, based on "intelligence, imagination, and sensi- 
bility", and habit, on the other hand, resulting from 
instruction and repetition, lies the great force which 
must accept ideals and transmute them into moral 
habits, the good will. How shall "the soul's power of 
self-direction towards chosen ends" be enlisted in the 
establishment of a noble character, outwardly expressed 
in worthy deeds? 

Conduct is the outcome of will; moral conduct is the 
fruition of a good will. Will is rooted in desire, from 
which it ascends through choice to execution. Desire 
is rooted partly in instinct, and partly in knowledge; 
it must be tempered by sympathy and the sense of duty. 
Active sympathy, again, is partly due to instinct and 
partly to suggestion and the contagion of feeling. It 
needs guidance from knowledge, from the experience of 
the race. 

All habits were in their inception voluntary acts, 
which have through repetition by free choice become 
automatic, no longer needing direction by the will. But 
will, moved by desire of some sort, however induced, 
was their author. There must have been, somewhere 
and somehow, a persuading force which made the repe- 
tition possible. The very center of the teacher's- prob- 
lem, therefore, seems to be that of engendering or 
bringing into action this persuasive force, thus creating 
at least a temporary and recurring desire to perform the 
worthy action, to "do the right thing". 

But the choice must, after all and always, be the 
pupil's own. He must wish, for the moment at least, 
to do the right thing, and the wish must, if it lapses, 



124 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT , 

be capable of renewal upon fit occasion. An action can 
not be called moral unless the child has chosen to do it. 
It is the teacher's task, then, to furnish such occasions, 
to envelop the pupil in such an atmosphere as will 
make right choice seem rational and easy, to appeal to 
his highest ideals and purest sympathies, and to re- 
move or reduce as far as possible conflicting or hinder- 
ing motives and influences. And it will be a great step 
gained if the pupil can be got to view his own possible 
or actual acts from an impersonal standpoint. Kant's 
maxim, "So act that thy conduct might become the 
law for all", may be too abstract and too elevated to 
take vital hold on the mind of impulsive or tempted 
youth; but it is the ideal towards which the teacher 
should patiently and hopefully strive, putting his own 
personality and his own personal love and sympathy 
back of the endeavor. 

The Question of Methods. — Thus far, the discus- 
sion may have seemed to the reader to be too general, 
more philosophical than practical, unless he recognizes 
that some philosophy must underlie all effectual prac- 
tice. Let us now, however, try to approach the matter 
more closely from the practical side of ways and means. 
What are the possible methods by which influence can 
be brought to bear upon pupils in school for the crea- 
tion of high ideals, the training of the moral judgment, 
and the determination of the will to those attitudes 
which will result in right life-habits ? 

At least five more or less distinct lines of practical 
effort have been advocated, all of which have been em- 



MORAL TRAINING 125 

ployed to a greater or less extent. A brief presentation 
of these seems profitable at this point. Dependence may 
be placed on 

(1) The Personal Example of the Teacher. If the 
teacher is a person of high character and engaging per- 
sonality, one who acts from principle, with evident sin- 
cerity and sympathetic interest in his pupils, his un- 
conscious personal influence will be more effective than 
his conscious efforts. The importance of this has al- 
ready been insisted on ; but great as this inspiring influ- 
ence may be, it is not adequate for all demands. The 
child needs something more than silent example to give 
that intelligence and moral judgment which are neces- 
sary elements of sound character. Moreover, the exam- 
ple and bearing of teachers are not always of such 
quality and consistency as would render other agencies 
unnecessary. 

(2) Incidental Instruction and Discipline , as Condi- 
tions Necessitate. The personality of the teacher will 
do its beneficent work not merely through the bare force 
of example, but it will naturally and necessarily find 
expression in the daily discipline of the school. A wise 
dealing with school offenses and the moral shortcomings 
of pupils furnishes occasion for the most practical kind 
of instruction in the bases of conduct, the reasons for 
right action and the evil consequences of wrongdoing. 
Here we have morality in the concrete; and here is 
the place for the teacher, avoiding all unnecessary an- 
tagonisms, to press home the principles of right con- 
duet, by instruction, argument, and appeal. 

In the chapter on "Rules and Punishments" (Page 



126 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

150), attention will be definitely called to the office of 
punishment as an objective expression of turpitude, 
embodying the judgment, not of the teacher alone but 
of society at large, against selfish and wayward conduct. 
Children learn to estimate the moral quality of acts by 
noting, or experiencing, what is done about them by 
the ruling power. The result of this incidental and 
objective instruction in connection with discipline, as 
occasion requires, in the making of character will of 
course depend upon the wisdom and personal force of 
the teacher in charge. Punishment, wisely adminis- 
tered, emphasizes in the most impressive manner the 
opinion of good society with regard to selfish, lawless, 
or vicious acts, and gives greater vitality to the pre- 
cepts and prohibitions of the school. It is thus an 
effective aid toward the formation of right habits of 
action. 

(3) The Power of Regular School Activities to Im- 
press Moral Habits and Ideals. The regular ongoing 
of the school life, with its routine of class work, its 
organized movements, its games and athletics, and its 
daily intercourse under authoritative supervision, fur- 
nish an unconscious moral discipline of such importance 
as to call for separate and detailed treatment in a suc- 
ceeding chapter. But here, again, the moral outcome 
will be determined by the wisdom and efficiency of the 
administration, in other words, upon the power and 
quality of the teacher. 

(4) Indirect Moral Instruction in Connection with 
School Subjects. Certain of the school studies furnish 
material and occasion for an incidental and indirect 



MOEAL TEAINING 127 

cultivation of the moral sense. Mathematics and nat- 
ural science, by their insistence on absolute accuracy, 
are thought to exert an unconscious influence in favor 
of truthfulness. Other studies, especially history and 
literature, unquestionably offer a most favorable oppor- 
tunity for the development of high ideals of human 
efficiency and character. Under skillful teaching, the 
youthful mind may be kindled into enduring enthusi- 
asms by the high examples which history records and 
literature creates. Who can measure the silent influ- 
ence which has been exerted through the generations by 
the story of youthful David, of the 300 at Thermopylae, 
of Socrates and the fatal cup, of Cornelia and her sons, 
of William Tell and Winkelried, of St. Francis Xavier 
and his like, of La Salle and Marquette, of Washington 
from the cherry tree to the presidential chair, of Flor- 
ence Nightingale and Jane Addams, and, perhaps above 
all others, of Abraham Lincoln, "the first American". 
And the creations of poetry and fiction, while perhaps 
less vital in their influence, afford admirable oppor- 
tunities for character analysis and the exercise of moral 
judgment without personal bias. 

The teacher of history, no matter how learned his 
expositions or how wide his references for research, fails, 
after all, of his chief mission if he neglects this oppor- 
tunity for eliciting the admiration of his pupils for 
admirable characters and their critical judgment on 
those which furnish warning rather than example for 
imitation. Yet it will behoove the teacher not to let 
his moral purpose become too evident; for youth reacts 



128 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

against preaching and especially against the "rubbing 
in" of moral j3recept or admonition. 

(5) Systematic Instruction through Principle and 
Precept. Concerning the modes of moral influence thus 
far discussed there can be little controversy. They are 
all useful and all necessary. The question remains, 
however, whether any or all of them are adequate to 
the need without the addition of definite and systematic 
instruction in ethical precepts and principles. Concern- 
ing the value and efficiency of such formal instruction 
there is great diversity of opinion. To such instruction, 
it has been objected with much force that morality can 
not be taught by abstmctions, that such study is only 
study about morals and not training in morality, that 
knowledge as to the theory of morality by no means 
insures its practice, which is the end sought. It is 
further t objected that theoretical ethics is too abstruse 
to be taught before adult age, when the habit-forming 
stage is well past; that effectual training in morals 
must be done, if ever, before the age at which ethical 
theory can ,be appreciated. 

So far as purely theoretical instruction in ethics is 
concerned, these objections are, no doubt, well taken; 
but there would seem to remain the possibility of a 
simpler form of moral instruction, in which principles 
of right conduct should be assumed rather than argued, 
and illustrated by concrete cases, so as to bring them 
within youthful comprehension. This, certainly, is the 
only way in which moral instruction can be brought to 
young pupils in any systematic manner. Anecdotes, 
true or invented, must serve as the basis of such les- 



MOEAL TEAINING 129 

sons, constituting the text, if not the whole discourse, 
leaving the pupils to draw the moral themselves. It 
may not be wise to place these lessons as a set exercise 
in the daily program, but rather to introduce them as 
occasion favors in the "general exercises" of the school. 
The ordinary teacher can not, of course, be expected 
to originate these objective illustrations, nor even to 
cull them out for himself from the great fields of his- 
tory and literature, though suitable anecdotes and inci- 
dents will often present themselves when least expected 
in his daily reading, in the newspapers even. 

Many attempts have been made to prepare books suit- 
able for the use of teachers in this sort of work; but 
few of them can be commended as really successful. 
An early and quite successful effort may be found in 
Gow's "Morals and Manners" (Am. Book Co.), pub- 
lished as long ago as 1873. For a more systematic 
effort, Everett's "Ethics for Young People" (Ginn & 
Co.) may well be studied and utilized by the teacher. 
Some excellent material for use in general exercises 
may be found in Garrison's "Parables for Home and 
School" (Longmans, Green & Co.). A new book by 
Ella Lyman Cabot, "Ethics for Children" (Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co.), however, is undoubtedly the most satis- 
factory book of this sort yet offered. It may be safely 
said that any teacher of children in the elementary 
schools will find this collection of stories and poems, 
arranged with reference to fitness for use in the several 
grades, a most valuable guide and aid to instruction 
in morals. 



130 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

Religious Education as a Basis for Moral Char- 
acter. — There can be no doubt that religious belief 
and feeling often constitute, where they exist, the strong- 
est motive toward right conduct. It is entirely natural, 
therefore, that many people should feel that no effort 
at moral training can be thoroughly successful or com- 
plete which does not develop and utilize the religious 
basis. In Germany and Great Britain, religious in- 
struction of some sort is required even in state-sup- 
ported schools; but whether this is more for its effect 
on morals or more for strictly religious reasons it might 
be hard to say. In this country, the public schools are 
now pretty thoroughly secularized, and in. some states 
it is even unlawful to read the Bible, as part of a devo- 
tional exercise, in schools. But even if entire freedom 
in that respect were still the rule it would require much 
wisdom on the part of teachers in the selection of Scrip- 
ture readings suited to further the ends of moral edu- 
cation. Mere perfunctory reading of the Bible, with 
or without comment, is almost certain to fall on closed 
ears and minds. In any case, the giving of religious 
instruction in public schools seems to be beset with 
almost insurmountable difficulties. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER CULTIVATED BY 
THE SCHOOL 

As was intimated in the preceding chapter, the ques- 
tion of the wisdom or efficacy of theoretical moral 
instruction in schools is a mooted one, with sincere 
disputants on either side. But there is no question at 
all that there should be moral influence in the school. 
But how shall this influence be exerted if not through 
instruction? In answer to this question, let us take 
the matter of instilling good manners. Some instruc- 
tion in manners, that is, some information as to the 
ways and usages of polite society, will be useful, even 
necessary; but the acquisition of good manners must, 
after all, be largely a matter of suggestion and imita- 
tion. Contact with people of courtesy and refinement 
will do more for the youth than any amount of formal 
instruction. Conduct is an art and not a science; and 
moral character, so far as it is not a matter of good 
birth and good breeding, must come as the result of 
personal influence, appeal, and example. All these the 
school can do much to furnish, with a minimum of 
preaching or moral instruction, if the teacher is really 
qualified for his post of influence. 

But this is not to be taken as an argument against 
wise and practical instruction in morals. Moral char- 
acter is too important an end of school endeavor to 

131 



132 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

justify neglect of any and every means which can be 
made to further its attainment. But to those who lack 
faith in the objective result of formal instruction in 
morals there is great consolation in the fact that every 
well-ordered schcol does give training in morals by the 
mere force of its daily ongoings. 

Back in 1872, Dr. Wm. T. Harris, late U. S. Com- 
missioner of Education, then City Superintendent of 
St. Louis, gave in his Annual Eeport for that year so 
luminous and informing a discussion of the moral 
habits which a good school tends unconsciously to form 
in its pupils that his essay has become a recognized 
educational classic. It was repeated by himself in vari- 
ous connections and has been paraphrased and adapted 
by nearly every text-book on School Management which 
has since appeared. It is thought well to follow the 
same practice here, using the language of Dr. Harris 
more or less freely. 

School Discipline as Adapted to Secure Moral 
Education. — The pillars on which public school edu- 
cation rests are Behavior and Scholarship. The first 
requisite is Order; each pupil must be taught, first and 
foremost, to conform his behavior to a general standard. 
Only thus can the school as a community exist and fulfill 
its functions. In the outset, therefore, a whole family 
of virtues are taught to the pupil, and these are taught 
so thoroughly, and so constantly enforced, that they 
will become fixed in his character. The duty of being 
a well-behaved pupil is not a vague generality ; it divides 
into specific and well-defined duties: 



ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER 133 

(a) Punctuality. The school demands that the pupil 
shall be in his place on time. Sleep, meals, play, busi- 
ness, even indisposition — all must give way to the duty 
of obedience to the school requirement of time. Punc- 
tuality does not end with getting to school. During 
the school hours it is of equal importance. Combina- 
tion can not be achieved without it. The pupil must 
have his lessons ready at the appointed time, must rise 
at the tap of the bell, and go through all the evolutions 
with precision. The value of punctuality as a habit 
can not well be overestimated. The immorality of tardi- 
ness and dilatoriness not only in school but still more 
in business life must be impressed by every available 
means. A school officer once said, "I have spent more 
time in waiting for other members to come together after 
the appointed hour of meetings than it has ever taken 
to do the business of the board". He justly felt this 
waste of his time to be robbery. 

In these days, the school has an efficient ally in the 
railroad in this matter of educating the people into 
habits of punctuality. "Time and tide wait for no 
man", still less does the express train. 

(b) Regularity. "Kegularity is punctuality reduced 
to a system"; but it deals with larger units of time. 
Eegularity means being at school every day ; punctuality 
means doing things at the minute appointed. It need 
not be difficult for the teacher to show to both child and 
parents the irreparable evil of irregularity; but neither 
pupil nor parent will realize this without thoughtful 
effort on the teacher's part. Making school a business 
is the standard to be perseveringly aimed at, 



134 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

There are two principal causes of irregularity with 
which the teacher has usually to contend, (1) the neg- 
ligence or selfishness of parents in keeping children 
out of school on slight pretexts, and (2) the indolence 
or antipathy of pupils, taking the form of truancy. 
Both are alike inimical to the establishment of that 
habit of reliability in the meeting of duties at which 
the school aims. But so far as the school succeeds in 
overcoming these obstacles it becomes a true teacher of 
morality. Combination in school, and afterwards in 
business life, rests on these two virtues, regularity and 
punctuality. They are the most elementary ones of the 
moral code — its a, b, c. 

(c) Silence. Silence is the basis for the culture of 
reflection — the soil in which thought grows. The pupil 
is therefore taught habits of silence, to restrain his 
natural impulse to prate and chatter, or to excite at- 
tention by his acts. All ascent above mere physical being 
arises through this ability to hold back the mind from 
utterance of the immediate impulse and to correct its 
one-sidedness by reflection. Thus silence in the school- 
room has a two-fold significance. It is necessary to the 
attainment of combination with others, and besides this, 
it is a direct discipline in the art of combining the dif- 
fused and feeble efforts of the pupil himself. The dis- 
traction of the mind consequent upon garrulity pre- 
vents reflection. The absorption of the mind in thought 
absolutely necessitates abstention from talk and all 
noise-producing activities. And, in school, this should 
go farther than mere negative silence ; the pupil should 
acquire the difficult but needful habit of absorption in 



ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER 135 

his proper task, even when a lively recitation is going 
on in another class. He must acquire that strength 
of mind which will enable him to pursue without dis- 
traction his train of thought and study under any ex- 
ternal conditions. Out of this discipline, grow atten- 
tion, memory, thought — the three factors of culture. 

The cultivation of this habit of silence and this re- 
pression of "the animal instinct to prate and chatter" 
is no easy part of the teacher's duty. The social impulse 
is strong and the disposition towards reflection is weak. 
There must be a constant effort to secure, on the part 
of each individual, consideration for the rights of others 
and the recognition of the fact that no one should in- 
dulge himself in conduct which could not be properly 
engaged in by all. 

Arnold Tompkins has said (Philosophy of School 
Management), "Most effective of all means of divert- 
ing attention is that of noise. Silence must be the law 
of the schoolroom. It is quite common for the teacher 
to make more noise than all the pupils together. A 
teacher should speak in quiet tones and move about too 
quietly to attract notice. 

"I know it has been often urged that a noisy school- 
room is a sign of energy and activity, of industry and 
hard work, that the working beehive must hum. This 
sounds very well till we reflect that it is physical energy 
and activity that make the noise ; there is no mental 
analogy. The greater the mental activity the greater 
the silence. This doctrine of a noisy school arises 
from two classes of teachers — those who can not secure 
silence, and seek an escape through the theory; and 



136 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

those who champion in good faith the plea for freedom 
on the part of the pupil — or, as it seems to some, a 
plea for license." 

(d) Truth. The school, as its fourth virtue in the 
ascending scale, inculcates truthfulness. Truth is the 
basis of the duties of a man toward others. "The 
truth shall make you free" is the word of inspired wis- 
dom. Truth is the foundation of all trust, in the fam- 
ily, in social relations, in business of every kind. Falsity 
is a subtile poison which destroys the positive benefits 
that may be derived from the institutions of society; 
and the individual who practices it will soon find him- 
self in the condition of a wild beast, as regards social 
life. 

The virtue of truthfulness is developed in a two-fold 
way in the schoolroom. First, by the continual disci- 
pline of the recitation; the pupil is required to be 
accurate and comprehensive in his statements; he is 
taught that suppression of important particulars makes 
his statement false; he is held strictly accountable to 
know what he says, i. e., to have a clear conception of 
what is involved in the words he uses. 

The second mode of securing truthfulness is the 
direct application of discipline to the behavior of the 
pupil. Any lack of truthfulness in the pupil reveals 
itself at once in his struggles to conceal his misde- 
meanors. It is an object of constant care on the part 
of the teacher to suppress lying and dishonesty in what- 
ever forms they may manifest themselves. The admoni- 
tion of the teacher, the disgrace felt at exposure in the 
presence of schoolmates, are most powerful caustics to 



ELEMENTS OF MOEAL CHAEACTEB 137 

remove this moral disorder. But it is to be remembered 
that the most common cause of lying in school is the 
fear of punishment for offenses and failures. It is of 
the utmost importance, therefore, that the teacher should 
be able to establish an abiding confidence in his fairness, 
forbearance, and personal sympathy. 

And in all school work it is to be held that accuracy 
is simply a phase of truthfulness, not only accuracy of 
formal statement, but accuracy in the choice of words 
and accuracy in form, even to orthography and punctua- 
tion. He can not tell the truth who does not choose 
his words accurately. And even the dotting of one's 
i's and crossing of his t's should be a matter of con- 
scientious fidelity to the truth of form. All slovenli- 
ness is, in a sense, slackness of regard for the truth, a 
want of fidelity. 

(e) Justice. The duty of justice follows that of 
truthfulness, and partly presupposes it. Justice can be 
taught only in a community. In a well ordered com- 
munity, it grows spontaneously. A system of measure 
established by which conformity to rule and right is 
rewarded by recognition, and all breach of discipline by 
prompt exposure, appeals constantly to the sense of 
justice and develops its normal exercise. The little 
community of the schoolroom filled with forty or fifty 
children presents a miniature world. There are chil- 
dren of the wealthy and of the indigent, children of 
talent and children of slow, imprisoned intellects, some 
with deep spiritual instincts, others with base, brutal 
ones. Dress and carriage and speech vary accordingly. 
But before the schoolroom ideal all artificial distinq- 



138 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

tions vanish, and each is equal in rights and duties. 
The standard of comparison shall be the work done, its 
quantity and its quality. We have here no aristocracy 
save that of honesty and good will. Can there be a 
better soil for the growth of a feeling of moral respon- 
sibility or a sense of justice? The normal power and 
influence of the school may, however, be impaired or in 
a degree thwarted by certain mistakes on the part of 
the educator. Whenever any artificial and extraneous 
motive, like special rewards, the buying of good be- 
havior, is introduced the whole mechanism goes wrong. 
The question of what is just and true must not be 
clouded by motives of immediate self-interest. Any sort 
of bribery of children to do what we wish them to do, 
confuses the notion of justice and argues weakness and 
shortsightedness on the part of the teacher. 

(f ) Humanity. Says Dr. Harris, "The highest virtue 
in our list — Kindness or Love of Mankind — like the 
sense of justice, requires a community for its culture, a 
community which, like the school, brings together all 
classes and conditions, and subjects them to the same 
trials and the stame standard of success. * * * The 
trials that all are alike subjected to reveal to each child- 
ish heart the temptations and struggles with passion and 
impulse, as well as the weakness of will and intellect 
that belong to his fellows. He sees in them the gap 
between intention and actual performance and this ex- 
cites his commiseration. Broad human sympathy begins 
its growth under these conditions." 

The child begins with demanding justice for himself, 
but comes, in time, to realize that this can only be had 



ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER 139 

in correlation with justice to all. And the growth of 
the feeling for justice gets great assistance from the 
sympathetic impulses of the soul. Pity, the pain of 
witnessing suffering in others, the later impulse to kind- 
ness and friendliness help on the ideal of justice, "the 
square deal"; and this, in turn, helps to weld all these 
feelings into the great humanitarian sentiment without 
which true society can not exist. 

It may be questioned, perhaps, whether this analysis 
of Dr. Harris, profound in its insight, covers exhaus- 
tively the whole field of moral training unconsciously 
and incidentally given by the well disciplined school. 
Some would wish to add the discipline in : 

(g) Industry. The habit of continuous application 
to the end of some positive result either in knowledge 
or disposable products is one of the most valuable assets 
in human life. Its opposite, the habit of idling, or 
dawdling, of frittering away time in aimless or incon- 
secutive effort, is one very easily acquired and fatal to 
success of any sort. One of the chief problems of the 
school is to secure the establishment of this industrious 
attitude, which finds pleasure in the productiveness of 
continuous effort, delight in getting things done. This 
involves, of course, the element of self-denial at first, 
until the pleasure in achievement becomes a strong and 
adequate motive. And a degree of courage, or fortitude, 
must enter in, helping the pupil to face difficulty with 
resolution. Thus the training to industry is a training 
of the will along with the founding of a habit. 

The teacher should strive to impress upon his pupils 
the full force of the old injunction, "Work when you 



140 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

work and play when yon play", the valne of putting 
their fnll force into either form of activity, and the 
mischief of trying to combine the two, or, worse yet, of 
making a pretense of work without any real industry. 
Make clear to them that shirking and "soldiering" 
are among the most contemptible forms of dishonesty, 
while trifling and dawdling in worktime are sure con- 
ditions of failure in achievement. 

(h) Obedience. Practically every one who writes on 
the subject of school discipline places great emphasis 
on obedience as a school virtue. And this is well; but 
perhaps the term is in need of clearer definition. We 
do not wish to train children to servility or mere sub- 
servience. With adults, we count resistance to tyranny 
or extortion as a virtue. When we enjoin obedience we 
need to be conscious, at least, of the other term of the 
relation, namely, the authority which has a right to 
command. Obedience — to what ? Of course, to rightful 
authority. The child has a sense of this when he hotly 
declares to the stranger, "You ain't the boss of me !" 

But we do need, as teachers, to address ourselves to 
this duty of training in obedience, though often badly 
handicapped by the failure of the home in this respect. 
What is demanded of the public school above all else, 
at this time, is the production of law-abiding citizens. 
The charge seems to be only too well founded that the 
crowning vice of American civic life is lawlessness, a 
self-indulgent disregard of law. Yet it can safely be 
assumed that the child trained from the start to respect- 
ful obedience has, and will have, "a better time" than 
the lawless, undisciplined one. A boy coming home 



ELEMENTS OF MOEAL CHARACTER 141 

from the district school once said impatiently to his 
mother, "I do wish that teacher would make us behave 
ourselves". He had reached a realization of the un- 
satisfactory, unprofitable nature of disorder. The obe- 
dience which we should teach is eventually simple con- 
formity to the "rules of the game" of life, harmony with 
the social organism, co-operation with the forces which 
make for human welfare. And the well-ordered school 
will do much to make this attitude easy to the citizen 
in his mature years. 

True Obedience. But the type of obedience which 
we should aim to develop is not a more or less reluctant 
submission to authority backed by force, but the cheerful 
spirit of co-operation with the directive power of the 
school. To secure this, the teacher must (1) command 
confidence and respect. Unless he can show in himself 
the fine fruits of education and self-discipline, unless 
he shall impress the pupil as worthy of imitation, his 
capacity for moral influence will be small. (2) He 
must show himself friendly in the best sense, genuinely 
solicitous for the pupil's well-being, and not merely the 
person in official charge. (3) He must show himself 
alive and energetic in leadership. A listless, sluggish, 
or wavering manner or temperament is an almost fatal 
impediment to that loyalty which we are now con- 
sidering. 

As was said in the preceding chapter, conduct is the 
outcome of will; moral conduct is the fruition of a 
good will. Will is rooted in desire; desire is rooted 
partly in instinct and partly in knowledge. It is vitally 
important, therefore, that youth shall somehow gain a 



142 SCHOOL, MANAGEMENT 

clear knowledge of the natural consequences of the 
different forms of conduct. This knowledge is gained 
largely through experience, and school experience is 
here of great value because it comes at a time of life 
and under conditions which give it force in the forma- 
tion of moral habit. It should, however, be wisely sup- 
plemented, incidentally it may be, by instruction and 
appeal, drawing illustrations and warnings from the 
outside world. And all this must be vitalized and forti- 
fied by the personality of the teacher. 

The Conditions of Success in All This. — The school 
virtues which we have been considering are, withal, the 
cardinal virtues of social life ; these are the moral habits 
essential to civilized life. But while the good, well- 
ordered school works constantly and silently towards the 
development of self-control and considerateness, it must 
not be imagined that every school will automatically 
produce these fruits of the spirit. Punctuality, regu- 
larity, reflectiveness, truthfulness, justice, kindness, obe- 
dience are not so instinctive that they will sprout up of 
themselves in the soil of school life. The discipline of 
the school, by the teacher, must continually and wisely 
press towards these results. 

All moral habits must be acquired by repeated acts 
of choice on the part of the individual. And in school, 
as elsewhere, that choice must be, finally, a free choice 
on the pupil's part. Even where punishment impends 
as an alternative, obedience must result from a volun- 
tary surrender of the pupil's will. Here, then, is the 
great problem of the teacher's daily, and hourly, life, 
how to secure a succession, unbroken if possible, of 



ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER 143 

right choices by each and every pupil. Whether these 
be secured by instruction and precept, by personal ex- 
ample, by the inspiration of historic characters, by 
direct appeal, or by the steadying force of penalties, or 
all combined, the work will demand vigor, firmness, 
sympathy, much study of individual cases, and eternal 
vigilance on the teacher's part; and no amount or kind 
of machinery will altogether relieve him from the ex- 
ercise of all these attributes and more. A good school 
may seem to run itself, but it never does. And the dis- 
orderly, ill-kept school may cultivate vices rather than 
virtues. 

The Moral Training of the Playground. — While 

allowing due weight to all the activities of the school- 
room, in both instruction and discipline, we must not 
overlook the fact that, from the standpoint of moral 
training, the playground is a very important part of 
the school. It is there that children train themselves 
into the possibilities and habit of concerted action. 
Choices are freer than in the schoolroom, but rights are 
asserted and must be regarded ; self must be in a measure 
subordinated in order that the "team-work" of games 
may be learned and practiced. 

Here it is, too, that vicious instincts are liable to be 
given free rein; here the bully flourishes and the cor- 
rupted mind spreads its contagion. No greater mistake 
can be made by the teacher than to assume that the 
burden of responsibility has slipped from his, or her, 
shoulders when the children are "turned loose" for play. 

The playground should be conscientiously supervised. 



144 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

This does not require that the teacher should be always 
on the playground at recess time ; but it does mean that 
he has no right at that time to esconce himself behind 
his desk to mark papers or prepare himself for the next 
lesson. For the most part, he should have a faithful 
eye on the children; his most suitable station will often 
be at the window ; but as frequently it should be out of 
doors. It is not often advisable that the teacher should 
participate in the children's games; though no absolute 
rule of that sort can be enjoined. But he should know 
what is going on; and can often assist the children to 
make better use of their playtimes than they would do 
if left wholly to their own devices. The comprehensive 
fact to be remembered is that the teacher has the same 
responsibility for the playground that he has for the 
schoolroom. 



CHAPTER XIV 

RULES AND PUNISHMENTS 

School government is only a means to an end, but 
the end is of such importance as to exalt the means. 
Good school government consists in such management, 
such application of motives, and such guidance of ac- 
tion, as will insure that harmony of purpose and spirit 
of co-operation between pupil and teacher which will 
secure the end sought, the inducting of the pupil into 
a truer and stronger selfhood, on a higher plane of 
spiritual experience. To inspire confidence, to quicken 
aspiration, to win and so to lead, that is to govern in 
the truest sense. 

But not every teacher is equal to this achievement in 
all cases. Even where pupils are responsive and well- 
disposed there are always, in an assemblage like a school, 
many occasions and temptations tending to cause for- 
getfulness or disregard of the ends for which the school 
exists and the teacher strives. At all ages, impulse is 
often stronger than reason, and checks must be pro- 
vided to reinforce right intentions. Even the most 
right-minded of citizens often find themselves helped 
and saved from wrong action by the checks and penal- 
ties of the civil law. The good citizen is a law-abiding 
citizen. And as the state needs statutes not only for 
the checking of the wayward but also for the quicken- 
ing and guidance of the good, so the school needs some 

145 



146 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

general principles, more or less definitely formulated, 
for ready application in emergencies and times of spe- 
cial stress. This brings us to the question of 

Rules in School. — In human society, we are familiar 

with two kinds of civil law: (1) the common law, or 
that body of unwritten law which receives its binding 
force from long usage and general acceptance; (2) 
statute law, those definitely formulated rules and prohi- 
bitions enacted by the legislative branch of government, 
and consequently varying greatly in different states or 
countries. 

The question now arises. Should the rules of the 
school be common law or statute law? It has been 
preached that a school should have but one rule, "Do 
right"; but that is too vague and comprehensive a rule 
for practical guidance to any one. The difficulty often 
lies just in seeing what is right. It is better to have 
more definite rules, even if unnecessarily restrictive in 
some cases, as in the home, for instance, the rule, 
"Never play with matches". That is a matter which 
can not safely be left to the judgment or conscience of 
children. 

Rules Should be Few. — The school, because of the 
immaturity and ignorance of its members, needs some 
statutes; yet they should be as few as possible. Even 
civil society seems to be suffering from the overloading 
of the statute books with unnecessary and sometimes 
conflicting laws; so that the citizen needs a lawyer to 
tell him whether he is obeying the law or not. 

In earlier days, it was no uncommon thing for a 



RULES AND PUNISHMENTS 147 

teacher, on taking charge of a new school, to announce 
or post up an elaborate list of "rules and regulations", 
a procedure which often tended to provoke antagonism or 
even suggest mischief which would not otherwise have 
been thought of. When a teacher included among his 
prohibitions, "No pupil shall climb on the wood-shed 
roof, it must have been a dull lot of boys who would 
not, sooner or later, have accepted the challenge. 

In short, it is best to trust to the "common law" of 
the school as far as possible, to have but few specific 
rules, and never to start with a long code of rules at 
the outset. Nor should there ever be any definite an- 
nouncement of penalties for infraction. In general, it 
is well for the pupil to find out the teacher's estimate 
of a wrong action by what lie does about it. It is better 
to establish a series of judicial precedents — common 
law — by action in individual cases. This will save the 
teacher from needless complications, and enable him to 
suit discipline to the individual child and act. 

The Ends of Punishment. — Before attempting to 
discuss the subject of school punishments, it is well to 
give some reflection to the real nature and ends of pun- 
ishment in general. Punishment, as a law term, has 
been defined as, "a penalty inflicted by a court of justice 
on a convicted offender as a just retribution, and inci- 
dentally for reformation and prevention". 

(a) Retribution. The definition, when analyzed, is 
very instructive. It emphasizes a thought which has 
ruled the world for ages, that the chief end of punish- 
ment is retribution. "Even-handed justice" has meant 



148 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

"getting even" with the offender, "an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth". Nineteen hundred years ago 
there came a great Eevelator and preacher of righteous- 
ness who discarded the whole doctrine of retaliation. 
Yet after all these centuries there rises easily in the 
mind of child and man the feeling that evil conduct 
deserves, and therefore ought to experience, retributive 
suffering. "He deserves to be hung" is almost a house- 
hold word. But this instinctive idea of retribution as 
the end of punishment, still largely prevalent in human 
thought, can not properly be admitted into school gov- 
ernment. And here the teacher will need to be con- 
stantly on guard against the retaliatory impulse. Every 
act of the teacher which even seems to the pupil to in- 
dicate the spirit of revenge or the desire to "pay off" 
weakens his influence and makes his future work more 
difficult. 

(b) Punishment as a Deterrent. Even in civil ad- 
ministration, prevention has come to be recognized as 
the chief end of punishment. The law is not made for 
the purpose of meting put to the evil-doer his desert, 
but to forestall evil doing. To give its warning suffi- 
cient force and impressiveness, penalties are affixed, 
which in some rough way indicate the enormity or 
injuriousness of the conduct prohibited or the impor- 
tance of that which is enjoined. 

When an offence against society has been committed, 
and the offender convicted, it is intended that his pun- 
ishment shall be severe enough to deter him from a 
repetition thereof; but the chief efficacy of the allotted 
punishment is found in its deterrent effect on others. 



KULES AND PUNISHMENTS 149 

Hence the penalty must be promulgated along with the 
law, and the punishment of offenders must be made 
matter of public knowledge. But, here again, school 
government need not follow all the methods of the civil 
law. It is not well to prescribe, beforehand, specific 
penalties for specific offenses. With children, circum- 
stances vary too widely, and the matter of temperament 
and environment must be taken into account as the 
civil administration can not do. The relation between 
teacher and pupil is too intimate and personal to be 
regulated by inflexible rules. And yet, of course, the 
teacher must restrain pupils by employing prudence, or 
regard for consequences, as a motive. 

(c) Reformation as an End in Punishment. In the 
present generation, the idea of reformation as an end 
in punishment has been gaining quite general accept- 
ance. This is shown forcibly by the multiplication of 
"reformatories", intermediate prisons, etc., and the adop- 
tion of "indeterminate sentences". There is here, per- 
haps, a little confusion of thought. While there is often, 
no doubt, a discipline in pain, it is not punishment that 
works reformation; it only affords the occasion or op- 
portunity. And reformation can only be sought in con- 
nection with particular forms of punishment, as im- 
prisonment. Fines can have little or no reformatory 
effect; and the death penalty puts a summary end to 
the possibility of reformation. That is one of the argu- 
ments against it. 

In school discipline, the reformation of the offender 
should be a conscious and prominent end in punish- 
ment. Its first effect should be to bring the child to 



150 SCHOOL. MANAGEMENT 

himself, to check the wrong impulses and give his nat- 
ural goodness, his right impulses, more opportunity for 
development. But even where punishment seems to 
work reformation, the result may be only negative. Ke- 
pression, even the suppression, of a habit is not enough ; 
we must aim to make the child love and desire the 
rilght. Punishment, thus, can only pave the way for 
positive reformation; of itself alone, it is never able to 
produce character. 

(d) To Express a Condemnatory Judgment on In- 
jurious Forms of Conduct. There is yet another office 
of punishment, not wholly included within any or all 
of those named, which is not as clearly recognized as 
it ought to be, namely, the use of punishment as an 
objective expression of turpitude, embodying the gen- 
eral judgment against wrong doing. Public opinion 
has with us all a power greater than we realize. Many 
a man is restrained from acts of passion or vice mainly 
by the fear of being found out, not merely because of 
the statutory penalties but because of the certain loss 
of his place in public estimation. He dreads the penalty 
because it is an expression of the public judgment and 
conscience. The whole code of legal penalties is largely 
a graded expression of the general mind on forms of 
conduct. 

Children in home and school learn to estimate the 
moral quality of acts by what is done about them by 
the ruling power. For this very reason, it behooves 
the teacher to see that all his punitory acts are well 
considered and furnish a just and reasonable expression 
of the degree of blameworthiness involved. 



RULES AND PUNISHMENTS 151 

If we would see more clearly how far these four ends 
of punishment enter into civil administration, we shall 
lind a helpful test in trying to answer the question, 
"Why are defaulting bank officers sent to prison?" In 
the minds of their victims, retribution will instinctively 
bulk large. Eeformation will, after all, take a secondary 
place. The man is not likely to repeat his offense, even 
if free. He is punished as a warning to other weak or 
tempted men, for the protection of the public. But, 
even here, the most important reason for punishment 
is the objective expression of the common estimate of 
his iniquity and his unfitness longer to associate with 
honest men. The same principles hold with children, 
and the educational value of punishment is the one 
chiefly to be considered. 

The Characteristics of Punishment. — We have 

next to consider the qualities which should characterize 
all punishments and the proper attitudes of those . on 
whom its administration devolves. 

(a) Punishment should be Certain. This is a com- 
monplace so often asserted as seldom to be challenged; 
but how much do we mean by it ? The first step towards 
the punishment of an offence, as obscene writing in 
outbuildings, is the detection of the offender; and this 
can never be certain. In civil administration, the prin- 
ciple prevails that the more difficult the crime is of 
detection the more severe should be the penalty on con- 
viction. The same principle is undoubtedly valid in 
school government. What is really meant by certainty 
of punishment is that the teacher should not be negli- 



152 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

gent in the detection of offences nor "easy" and spas- 
modic in the enforcement of rules and the administer- 
ing of correction. The teacher who "wobbles" in his 
administration soon loses control of the situation. 

(b) Punishment should be Just. It should be suit- 
able to the offence in kind and amount. This requires, 
of course, that the teacher shall not punish summarily, 
unless all the facts of the situation are open and undis- 
puted. He should aim always to investigate the repre- 
hensible act or event carefully and thoroughly and pa- 
tiently. Punishment can afford to wait for full evidence. 
The mere fact that the culprit is "on the carpet" and 
awaiting the verdict is, in itself, often a wholesome and 
impressive experience. It is frequently the better part 
of the whole penalty, provided always that the teacher 
does not weakly fail to carry the trial out to its proper 
conclusion. 

As has already been intimated, punishment should not 
be passionate or premature. Neither, on the other hand, 
is it always wise to defer punishment so long that it 
has to be done "in cold blood". A certain degree of 
moral warmth adds to the impressiveness of the pun- 
ishment. And in certain cases a degree of righteous 
wrath is admissible, if not desirable. The first requisite 
is that the teacher shall be sure of his facts and his 
interpretations. It seldom happens in school adminis- 
tration that an offence is as bad as it looks on the face 
of it; and many a teacher has had occasion to regret 
his hasty judgment and repent his severity when all 
the circumstances and motives came to be revealed. 

(c) Punishment should sustain, if possible, a natural 



KULES AND PUNISHMENTS 153 

relation to the offence. Much has been said in years 
not far gone about "the discipline of consequences". 
The phrase is a seductive one, but as a principle it 
must not be too rigorously or literally applied. A lad 
at home is forbidden to climb the big tree in the back 
yard. He disobeys, climbs high in the tree, falls out 
and breaks a limb. That, literally, is the discipline 
of consequences. "Serves him right", shall we say? 
A surgeon must be called and ultimately paid; a nurse 
must be employed, or else the mother must play the 
nurse in addition to her daily cares; the outlay, the 
labor, the anxiety, on whom do they fall? Another 
boy disobediently or ignorantly plays with a stick of 
dynamite and blows out both eyes; another skates on 
thin ice ?nd is drowned. It is clear that we must 
eliminate from our discipline of consequences all 
natural or physical consequences. The consequences 
bear no proper ratio to the moral quality of the offence ; 
they are often cruel and disproportionate. We should 
aim to make the punishment fit the offender rather 
than the offense. 

Yet there is a field in the discipline of the school 
where the penalty can be adjusted to the offence with 
some degree of suitability. Most of the offences in 
school may be looked upon as offences against the life 
of the school as a social organism, for such it is. The 
pupil shows by his daily conduct whether he is entitled 
to full fellowship in that organism. If he sins against 
the social life of the school, then a natural penalty 
will be his exclusion in some measures from the privi- 
leges and pleasures of that life. For most offences,, 



154 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

in fact, deprivation, forfeiture, or exclusion are the 
most suitable punishments, the nearest practicable 
approach to a discipline of consequences. 

Forms of Punishment. — If we have the right ends 
and proper characteristics of punishment clearly in 
mind, we shall now have little difficulty in judging as 
to the most rational and effective forms of penalty. 

(a) Corporal Punishment. In our consideration of 
School Incentives, we recognized the dread of physical 
pain as the lowest, yet, in the past, the most generally 
employed of all. The most common modes of its appli- 
cation have been symbolized by the terms "the rod", the 
"birch", the "tawse", "caning", etc. Perhaps the 
crudest and most cruel of all the instruments thus 
employed was the "ferrule", or ruler, a piece of polished 
maple or beech about twenty inches in length, two 
inches wide, at least half an inch thick, and beveled 
somewhat on one edge. This inflexible weapon was 
most often applied to the palm of the extended hand. 

That day of barbarity is now past, but there still 
remains the question of "corporal punishment". Much 
benevolent sentiment has been voiced, sometimes a little 
hysterically, against its application in school under any 
circumstances; and its use has happily been greatly 
diminished if not practically abolished. Yet much that 
has been urged in favor of its complete abolition lacks 
the force of truth. Corporal punishment, properly ad- 
ministered, is not necessarily cruel. To children, it 
is not unnatural or "servile". In some cases, pain 
seems to be about the only motive available. But it 



EULEvS AND PUNISHMENTS 155 

should be used infrequently and only as a last resort. 
It is not amiss to add that when whipping is employed 
as a punishment, it should be done with a flexible 
leather strap that will adjust itself to the rounded 
surfaces of the body, and never with any rigid instru- 
ment or anything which will raise welts upon the skin. 

A young friend of the writer, in earlier days, ap- 
plied for employment as teacher in a near-by district. 
The school board, quite contrary to the usual practice 
of that day, stipulated that he should not use cor- 
poral punishment in any case. His answer was, "I 
will take your school under that agreement provided 
that the whole arrangement shall be a secret between 
you and me; but if the children are to know that my 
hands are tied, I do not care to take your school at 
all". That was the speech of a sensible young man. It 
should be the aim of every teacher, as it was his, to 
so lead and inspire the school that the question of 
punishment need not enter in at all; yet to do this 
there must be back of him a hidden reserve fund or 
reservoir of authority, backed by possible force. 

(b) Deprivations. Deprivation of privileges has 
already been approved as sometimes a natural and 
proper penalty. But certain forms of deprivation 
need to be employed with care. For instance, the boy 
who fights or uses vulgar language at recess times may 
fittingly be deprived of a part or the whole of his 
recess until he makes himself fit to associate with 
others. But he should never be wholly deprived of 
opportunity to obey the necessary calls of nature. 

The keeping of children after school to make up 



156 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

lessons stands on different ground. If the child needs 
individual assistance, and the teacher keeps him for 
that purpose, the act is defensible. But a child should 
not be kept after school as a penalty. It is then a 
form of punishment and not of friendliness, and will 
almost certainly defeat its own end. The child, under 
such circumstances, is in no frame of mind for study. 
If not sullen and refractory, he is at least jaded and 
incapable of concentration. And, furthermore, he is 
probably expected at home, and parents have rights in 
that matter. 

(c) Suspension and Expulsion. Temporary sus- 
pension from all contact with the school is sometimes 
a useful corrective, though it involves a serious dis- 
advantage in loss of time from studies. A headstrong 
or perverse youth, with an overweening sense of his 
importance, may sometimes be brought to his senses 
by a period of exclusion. It gives him time and occa- 
sion to reflect on his conduct and it focuses the atten- 
tion of his parents, especially, on his insubordination. 

If, however, this proves ineffectual, the more drastic 
remedy of expulsion, or permanent exclusion, may be- 
come necessary. It is well to remember, however, 
that about the worst use you can put a boy to is to 
turn him upon the street. But if expulsion will result 
in his being put to useful labor that may be the best 
thing that could happen to him. The real criterion, 
on which the question of expulsion must turn, is this, 
Is his presence in the school a source of moral or 
physical contamination to the other pupils? Just as 
a child in the early stages of smallpox must be ex- 



EULES AND PUNISHMENTS 157 

eluded for the general good, so the disseminator of vice, 
secret or open, has no longer any right to make the 
school a field for his contagions. 

The teacher should remember, however, that the 
power of expulsion is not his, but rests with the school 
board, through which he must secure action. Expul- 
sion is a serious step, even when necessary for the 
preservation of all that the school stands for, and the 
teacher may well be glad to have the counsel and sup- 
port of his board in such a juncture. 

Reproof and Personal Criticism. — Closely allied 
to punishment, at least in aim, are those forms of 
criticism and disapproval known as reproof, repri- 
mand, and censure. All such disapproval should start 
from a plane of some moral elevation, and not from any 
spirit of querulousness or irritation; and this often 
demands much self-control on the part of the teacher. 
It should be preceded by a careful gathering of fact 
and analysis of motives. Reproof, employed as a factor 
in school discipline, may be: 

(a) General. The conduct which calls it forth may 
have been participated in by all, or many, of the pupils ; 
or it may be simply some form of offense which is likely 
to become general by contagion, such as the snow- 
balling of passers-by or trespassing on lawns and private 
premises. In such cases, the imputation of personal 
blame need not, at first, be specific, and general remon- 
strance or admonition may be the suitable form of dis- 
approval. But persistence in the evil practice will call 
for more severe forms of reproof and a closer inquiry 
into personal complicity. 



158 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(b) Particular, or Personal. When the offense is in- 
dividual in character or origin, or when it becomes a 
question of personal leadership or instigation of wrong- 
doing, the disapproval must take a more positive and 
personal form. In such cases, reproof may be either 
public or private. The judgment of the teacher must 
be exercised in deciding which of the two modes will 
be the more effective. It is seldom well to make a 
public exhibition of a wrongdoer, for it is human 
nature to sympathize with "the under dog-' even when 
he merits the suffering inflicted, but there are cases 
where this danger must be braved and the deed, if not 
the doer, held up before the school in condemnation. 

In the majority of cases, however, of individual mis- 
deed, the private, personal conference, the personal 
inquisition into motives, the "heart to heart talk", and 
perhaps the conference with parents, are the wisest and 
most hopeful forms of procedure. The pupil under 
public reproof or punishment is apt to "play to the 
galleries"; he does not put himself in a receptive atti- 
tude. In private conference, he can more easily face 
the facts as they are and has not the support of an 
audience. In such conferences it is not well for the 
teacher to indulge too freely in direct charges and 
allegations. The interrogative forms are safer, and 
often sufficient. 



CHAPTER XV 

CLASS MANAGEMENT 

By and large, the greatest and most difficult prob- 
lem of the instructor is that of attention, how to 
arouse and hold the interest and volition of the pupil. 
That problem belongs to Pedagogy rather than to 
School Management. But there are certain phases, or 
elements, of class management, the proper conduct of 
the recitation, which fall within the field of school 
mechanics, and so within the scope of this book. 

The Movement of Classes. — Brief reference has 
already been made to the matter of the seating of 
pupils with reference to their classification and con- 
venience of movement. This must be considered in 
the original organization of the school, in the first days 
of the term or year. In the graded school, even if 
there be two or three grades in the same room,. this is 
a comparatively simple matter, especially if the seats 
are adjustable. If they are of different sizes, as they 
should be, and non-adjustable, some irregularity will 
be created unless seats and desks can be changed about 
to accommodate the overgrown pupils in younger grades 
and vice versa. In the ungraded school, the seating 
problem will call for more study and adaptation. 

So mechanical a thing as the routine movement of 
classes, lines at recess time, etc., ought not to demand 
much of the teacher's time and attention. For that 
very reason, the movements should be conveniently 

159 



160 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

planned at the outset and then reduced as quickly as 
possible to automatic regularity and precision. This 
requires that precision be exacted at the start and 
vigilantly insisted on until a good habit is established. 
There should not be any needless amount of bell- 
thumping, and no signals should be noisy or numerous. 
While the quiet use of a thumb-bell is not objectionable, 
especially in a large school, vocal signals, as numbers, 
given in a well-controlled voice are preferred by many 
good teachers. Wherever pupils are required to move 
in lines, the lines should be kept in good alignment. 
A careless, straggling line is worse than none, and per- 
sonal carriage is a thing worth cultivating, even in 
children. 

Forms of Instruction. — The general form of the 
class exercise, or recitation, varies much according to 
conditions and the ends sought. We will note first 
the distinction implied in the terms Oral Teaching and 
Text-hook Teaching. The latter, of course, is adapted 
only to pupils of some advancement in ability to read. 
It involves the assignment of a certain portion of the 
text to be studied, that is, to be carefully read, analyzed 
with a view to comprehension, and to a greater or less 
extent memorized. One purpose of the recitation is to 
enforce and test this preparation. With some teachers, 
this is mistakenly thought to be the whole purpose of 
the recitation. 

Oral Teaching. — The term oral teaehing means, 
literally, teaching by "word of mouth", but will be 
used here to denote all teaching without text-books. 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 161 

It may employ, therefore, blackboard writing and draw- 
ing and even the use of apparatus. It may take the 
form of lectures, formal or informal, or of conver- 
sational exposition, with objective illustration, for the 
purpose of imparting knowledge of facts and relations. 
It may employ drill or repetition for the deeper im- 
pression of important facts and symbols. It may take 
either of the following forms; viz., 

(1) Objective, "showing", employing the senses in 
direct observation of (a) objects and natural phenom- 
ena, (b) processes and combinations as exhibited in 
laboratory experiments. 

(2) Direct, "telling", lecturing, followed, it may be, 
by tests or quizzing. 

(3) Indirect oral teaching, in which the other forms 
may be to some extent combined, but in which sug- 
gestive questioning and discussion intended to incite 
the pupil to analysis and reflection play the greater 
part. No wise teacher will confine himself to any one 
of these three modes of instruction; but his wisdom 
and skill will be shown by the way in which he adjusts 
them all to the age and mental status of the pupil and 
to the subject matter of instruction. 

Relative Advantages of Oral and Text-book 
Teaching. — It has been said that the proper use of 
the text-book is peculiarly an American problem. In 
no country, perhaps, is so great dependence put on 
text-books as here. In Great Britain, there is compara- 
tively little of that assigning of text-book matter for 
study and recitation with which we are so familiar. 



1()2 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

In German schools, there is still less; so that it might 
almost be said that instruction is exclusively oral. 
Some consideration of the relative advantages of oral 
and text-book instruction seems, therefore, desirable. 

Oral instruction gives the teacher's personality 
fuller play. It has the great advantage of being aided 
by the teacher's manner and especially the modulations 
of his voice. In text-book study, the pupil is set down 
in front of the printed page for the purpose of extract- 
ing its meaning and lodging the same in his memory. 
But in studying a text-book the pupil lacks the clues 
given by the living voice and often fails to place the 
emphasis properly; in other words he fails to attach 
the right relative importance to the ideas, and so goes 
astray in his thought. The text-book gives him every- 
thing on the dead level of the types, so to speak. Half 
the labor of studying a text-book lesson, in fact, consists 
in the effort to place the emphasis correctly — though the 
pupil usually does not realize that — and the effort is 
often unsuccessful. 

The text-book has the further disadvantage that it 
is not usually interesting in its forms of expression, 
or style; it uses many technical terms not familiar to 
the pupil, and also familiar words in new significations ; 
it lacks, as has been said, the aid of vocal expression, 
and it lends itself too easily to the laziness of the lazy 
teacher, who assumes that the author has done the 
teacher's work also. It is not true, as many seem to 
suppose, that teaching a text-book is easier than oral 
teaching when both are well done. 

In oral instruction, on the other hand, the teacher 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 163 

locates the emphasis himself and by facial expression, 
the glance of the eye, and vivacity of manner is the 
better able to hold attention and impress his meaning. 
Oral instruction is easier for the pupil, in a way, which 
may not be wholly in its favor; for candor compels 
the experienced teacher to admit that oral instruction 
does not stick unless reinforced by the requirement of 
much written work and much drill, which neither pu- 
pils nor teachers greatly enjoy. The old rule of "easy 
come, easy go" seems to hold here. In oral instruc- 
tion, too, there is the danger of "scatteration" and lack 
of organization on the part of the poorly prepared or 
overworked teacher. 

The use of text-books tends to reduce this danger, 
since the author has given much greater consideration 
to the organization and arrangement of his matter 
than can be expected of the ordinary teacher. More- 
over, the printed page affords the pupil the opportunity, 
if he will use it, of dwelling silently and reflectively 
on the matter presented, in the individual effort to 
assimilate its meaning. And as he must, in after life, 
depend largely upon books and other printed matter 
for his intellectual nurture, it is important that he 
should learn in school, as early as possible, how to 
get out of books what is in them. Yet the teacher 
needs always to make the utmost effort to vitalize 
text-book instruction by the force of his own per- 
sonal interest in and comprehension of the matter 
taught. 

But a more fundamental consideration, in the case of 
young pupils at least, arises from the fact that text- 



164 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

books are usually, and almost necessarily, constructed 
on the deductive plan. They begin with abstractions 
and broad generalizations, from which they descend 
by alternate definition and division to particulars, a 
method which is not naturally adapted to the youthful 
mind. Oral instruction, on the other hand, in the 
broad sense in which we have taken the term, lends 
itself more naturally to the inductive method of in- 
struction, which starts from individual experiences and 
rises by analysis and synthesis to general propositions, 
thus ending instead of beginning with definitions. The 
fuller discussion of this matter, however, belongs to 
Pedagogy rather than School Management. 

The Recitation. — It may be useful here to call 
attention to the "Americanism" involved in our use 
of the term "recitation". In Great Britain, the word 
is never used, as with us, to denominate every kind of 
class exercise. There, the teacher either gives a "lesson" 
orally or sets one in the text-book. The pupil, instead 
of "reciting" spends his time in writing up what he 
retains of the lesson in note-books. What we know 
as topical recitation — the true application of the term — 
and the general give and take of question, answer, and 
discussion, including even manual exercises and drill, 
which we lump together as "the recitation", is little 
known in British schools. While we have stretched the 
application of the term away beyond its etymological 
signification, it is nevertheless a very convenient appel- 
lation in this broad sense, and it will be so used without 
further apology. We may next consider : 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 165 

(a) The Objects of the Recitation. 

1. To test the information acquired by the pupil, 
his mastery of the lesson presented or assigned. 

2. To test or to increase the ability to apply and do, 
including the development of skill in the school arts, 
as reading, writing, etc. 

3. To verify and correct the information acquired, 
to remove mistaken conceptions. 

4. To supplement and vivify it. Here is where the 
teacher's daily preparation comes to his aid. 

5. To fix in mind the essential points in what has 
been acquired. 

6. To stimulate original thought and investigation. 

7. To cultivate free and accurate expression. Every 
recitation should be a lesson in English. 

8. To guide the pupil's further quest. 

If the reader has digested the above propositions, 
he is prepared to appreciate the vast distance between 
teaching and the old-time "lesson-hearing", not yet 
wholly extinct, it is to be feared. 

The writer recalls a teacher, good Miss F., who "heard 
the recitations" in Physical Geography with the text- 
book open in her lap, following the text, line by line, 
with her finger, to see whether it was recited verbatim. 
Comment is unnecessary. 

(b) The Teacher's Part in the Recitation. The 
teacher needs to have a clear and correct idea, from 
the beginning, as to his proper functions in the reci- 
tation. Some teachers apparently conceive their office 
to be that of a pump, though not always operating in 
the same way. With some, the main effort is directed 



166 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

towards pumping out of the pupils such ideas as they 
may have in any way imbibed, and, often, the process 
resembles the attempt to pump water from a dry well. 
With others, the continual endeavor is to pump knowl- 
edge into, or onto, the pupils' minds. And, frequently, 
this effort resembles the attempt to pump water into a 
teakettle, with the lid on. The most common and use- 
less error on the part of teachers in the recitation is 
undoubtedly that of talking too much. The "talkee- 
talkee" teacher is the bane of any schoolroom. The 
reasons for this habit of excessive speech are several: 
(1) The teacher, it may be, is fresh from school him- 
self, and is so full of his subject that he has no sense 
of proportion, and feels called upon to teach everything 
he knows. So, out of his fullness, he literally spills 
information over his pupils, sometimes, perhaps, with 
no higher motive than to air his own knowledge. (2) 
Another reason is found in the teacher's anxiety to get 
over ground. The recitation moves slowly, and he loses 
patience with the slow and bungling efforts of the class 
at expression. So he takes the tale out of the pupil's 
mouth, and does the reciting himself, a real injustice 
to the pupil. A good measure of the teacher's real 
power as an instructor might be found by observing the 
ratio of his own speech, in the recitation, to that of 
the members of the class, — the less talk the better 
teacher. There are times, of course, when the teacher 
should talk, especially under what are given above as 
the third and fourth objects of the recitation; and 
then he should talk in a clear-cut and illuminating man- 
ner. But this can never happen when, by reason of 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 167 

inadequate daily preparation, he attempts to "run his 
face" before the class. 

The real teacher is not a mere lecturer; monologue 
is not teaching. And that fault is scarcely less when 
the teacher consumes much of the time with ill-digested 
and ill-formulated questions. Eeal teaching will allow 
the pupil some time to think before speaking, and will 
make it necessary for him to think, by an unflinching 
demand for clear and connected statements concerning 
the matter in hand. Expression is the measure of 
thought. 

(c) The Art of Questioning. A question is a de- 
mand for thought or the results of thinking. If the 
results are not ready for immediate delivery, then re- 
flection must ensue to meet the demands. It is the 
office of a question to arrest the attention and focus it 
on a definite, limited field of thought. It is also an 
intellectual stimulant, or irritant. Questioning aids the 
mind of the learner by its analytical quality; it breaks 
up the larger segments of knowledge into smaller ones 
on which it concentrates the mental activities. It ought 
to follow that most of the assistance which the pupil 
needs can very well be given in the interrogative form. 

Why question pupils, then? 

1. To find out their needs. 

(a) What they already know, by way of prepara- 
tion for further instruction. 

(b) Their misconceptions and difficulties, a most 
essential part of the teaching process. 

2. To show them their needs. To secure the activ- 
ity of their minds and their co-operation. It secures 



168 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

activity through the sting of ignorance, the pain which 
Socrates called a "gadfly" to provoke thought; and 
opens the door to co-operative effort through its analytic 
function. 

3. To test the results of thinking, and of our teach- 
ing. We may, therefore, distinguish three kinds of 
questioning : 

(1) Tentative, or Preliminary Questioning. 

(2) Instructive, or Socratic Questioning. 
( 3 ) Examinations . 

Tentative questioning, probing the pupil's intelligence 
to see what foundations he has on which we can build, 
is of the utmost importance. Our danger is two-fold, 
first, of assuming too much knowledge on the part of 
the pupil, and so failing to find the "point of contact", 
building in the air, so to speak; and, secondly, on 
the other hand, of giving the pupil too little credit for 
intelligence and so staling his appetite by useless repeti- 
tion. "What are you learning at school, Johnnie ?" was 
asked of a lad, whose prompt and disgusted reply was, 
"What I allers knowed". 

Test questioning, or examination, may be formal or 
informal, may occur daily or at stated intervals. It 
is a mistake, however, in examining to split up the 
matter too fine by a multiplicity of specific questions, 
thus giving the examinee too many cues; though the 
opposite extreme of question-topics too general and 
comprehensive, leading to "stabbing", or mere guesses 
at what the examiner wishes, is also to be avoided. 

Tentative questions and examining, or testing ques- 
tions, should be (1) Searching. They should not be 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 169 

superficial, trivial, or irrelevant, but should go to the 
mark, the vital parts of the subject matter. It is their 
purpose to reveal weakness with a view to its remedy, 
if weakness there be; though, of course, they should 
reveal knowledge, where knowledge exists. 

"Young man/' once said Dr. Samuel Eliot to the 
writer, on a certain occasion when they were examiners 
together at Hampton Institute, "you are not trying to 
find out what these pupils know but what they don't 
know". The remark, perhaps, had its point; but that 
is at least one purpose of examination, to find out what 
pupils don't know which they ought to know. 

(2) Not suggestive. The object of this questioning 
is not to elicit passable answers but to discover mental 
conditions. No question here should convey more than 
it demands. This will be further touched upon a little 
later on. 

Instructive Questioning.— But the greater part of 
the questioning by a skillful teacher will be of our sec- 
ond sort, Instructive, or Suggestive Questioning — some- 
times called, rather mistakenly, Socratic questioning. 
This is the kind of question which is an intellectual 
stimulant, keeping the mind of both learner and teacher 
on the qui vive. It helps the pupil over the hard places 
by giving the right direction to his attention and so, in 
a sense, pioneering the way for his own thought. 
Instructive, or Socratic questions should: 
(a) Have a logical procedure. They must never be 
aimless or haphazard. They should follow on in a 
series,, and each question in the series should have in 



170 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

view the ultimate end sought, either in the way of 
conviction or refutation. While the question may often 
grow out of the previous answer, the goal in view 
must remain constant. 

(b) Should stimulate curiosity. The question should 
be such in form and in its immediate demand as to 
provoke interest and mental alertness. 

(c) Should lead on to original thought. That is 
really the main purpose of this kind of questioning. 
The method of Socrates consisted in such a sequence of 
questions as would draw the disciple into contradictory 
positions and admissions, "putting him in a hole", so 
to speak, and compelling him to revise his premises 
and start over again. The teaching of intellectual hu- 
mility, taking the conceit out of smart young men, 
which evidently afforded the Greek sage much satisfac- 
tion, will not, however, figure very largely in the aims of 
the modern teacher. To encourage careful analysis of 
facts and develop the attitude of mental independence 
and self-reliance will be the more salutary aim. 

What Constitutes a Good Question? — What stand- 
ard, then, can be applied to determine whether a ques- 
tion is good or bad? The first test is, What was the 
purpose of the question? Had it any definite aim? 
Which kind of question was it? And does it suit the 
purpose for which it was intended? If so, it is 
good. Every question gives, or contains, certain data 
and requires others to be supplied. For instance, 
in the question, "Of what state is Springfield 
the capital?", three facts are given, or assumed, a 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 1?1 

state, a capital, Springfield; and only one fact is left 
to be supplied, the name of the state. In the question, 
"Is Milwaukee the capital of Wisconsin?", three facts 
are again given, and only a mere assent, a simple choice 
of facts, is demanded. But in such a question as, 
"What importance attaches to the struggle for Fort 
Duquesne?", only three facts are assumed, Fort 
Duqaesne, struggle, importance, while a goodly group, 
or series, of facts must be adduced in response to the 
question. ' In a rough way, we may be warranted in 
saying that the greater the number of facts demanded 
in proportion to the number of data given, the better 
the question. 

Defective Forms of Questioning. — We may turn 

from the inquiry as to what constitutes a good ques- 
tion to consider certain bad forms. Perhaps the worst 
of all is the indefinite or ambiguous question. The 
question which has no clear point and the one which is 
capable of more than one interpretation are alike 
vicious. They only blur and befog the mind of the 
learner. The bottom fact about such questions is, per- 
haps, their clumsiness. The questioner has no clear 
idea of the point he wishes to reach, and his language 
reflects the haziness of his mind. 

Next in badness, is the wordy, or diffuse, question, 
which weakens itself by verbiage and lack of concise- 
ness. A question should contain just the words which 
are necessary to make it clear and intelligible, and no 
more. Here as elsewhere, "A fool's voice cometh with 
a multitude of words". But the worst vice of all in 



172 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

questioning is found in the habit, only too common, of 
repeating the question with modification. The teacher 
fires off a poor question, sees its lameness, and tries 
again, and even a third time, shifting his base more or 
less, and leaving the pupil's mind in a state of hope- 
less confusion. The rule should be, Think what you 
wish to ask, state your question in decent English, 
and let it alone till the pupil has had his chance at it. 

Leading Questions. — Much has been written 

against the use of "leading questions", those which 
more or less openly suggest the answer. These ques- 
tions are often so framed that the pupil knows at once, 
with the aid of the teacher's voice and manner, just 
what answer is desired. And in such cases pupils are 
apt to be very accommodating, feeling no responsibility 
for thinking, under those conditions. A clear distinc- 
tion must be recognized between such questions as these, 
framed to facilitate mechanical answering and to re- 
lieve the pupil from mental effort or embarrassment, 
and real suggestive questions, propounded not for the 
sake of formal answers but to provoke reflection. 

An extreme form of the leading question is that 
known as direct questions, questions which can be 
answered by a simple Yes or No. By these, the mental 
activity of the pupil is brought to an "irreducible mini- 
mum". It is true that the direct question has its 
uses. Sometimes, the activity desired is a simple cat- 
egorical judgment, "Is this thing (statement or 
proposition) true or not?" In such a case, the simplest 
question that makes the issue squarely is the best. But 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 173 

we must always discriminate between such decision- 
compelling questions and those intended to exempt the 
pupil from any labor but assent to an implied or fore- 
shadowed answer. 

Book Questions. — The time is not far past in which 
it was the custom to supply a text-book with an elabo- 
rate outfit of formal questions, placed at the bottom of 
each page and sometimes, even, so numbered as to 
refer to the lines above in which the answer would be 
found. This practice, once practically universal and 
unquestioned, has now entirely disappeared. The ob- 
jection to such questions lay in the fact that they were 
"cut and dried", leaving no stimulus in themselves 
and forestalling the proper initiative of the teacher. 
They were, too, wholly of the testing or examination 
type. In a few books, nowadays, a chapter is followed 
by a short list of suggestive questions, intended to 
stimulate the reader to draw inferences or conclusions 
not fully developed in the text; and to this there can 
be no objection, if the teacher will see to it that the 
intended use is made of them. 

The Pupil's Response (in the Recitation). — Corre- 
lated to the art of questioning, is what might be called 
the art of answering. It will be a matter of economy 
in school work, and a condition of greater success, if 
pupils are properly trained or habituated with respect 
to their manner of response to the demands of the 
teacher in the recitation. When a question is asked, 
what should be the immediate response? 

We may give some consideration here to the qualities 



174 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

of good answering. They are (1) Thoughtf illness, (2) 
Distinctness, (3) Correctness, or truth. A reckless, 
unconsidered answer is worse than none. If the ques- 
tion does not demand "thought or the results of think- 
ing" it is a worthless question and might as well not 
be answered at all. All flippant, irrelevant answering 
is lacking in moral as well as intellectual quality. The 
question arises with regard to "guessing" — should it 
ever be allowed? Sometimes, when a pupil has 
answered, out of his indolence, "I don't know", the 
teacher, in order to compel some sort of activity, says, 
"Well, guess, then". This, however, is only a case of 
poor English; the teacher does not wish a mere guess, 
but some sort of revelation of the pupil's real mental 
condition with reference to the question or topic. 

Distinctness and audibility in answering are of the 
utmost importance. All muttering of answers, "mental 
snoring", all muddled, incoherent answers furnish 
ground for suspicion, if not clear evidence, that they 
represent an equally muddled, incoherent state of mind. 
Clear cut articulation and enunciation are the natural 
accompaniments and expression of clear thinking, and 
vice versa. 

Concerning the matter of audibility, How loud should 
either the teacher or pupil speak? The answer is sim- 
ple and easy of application. So that all may hear 
who have the right to hear. 

The matter of personal carriage also enters in. The 
pupil reciting should stand squarely on his feet, with- 
out bodily contortions, and deliver himself intelligently 
of whatsoever thought he possesses. The teacher may 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 175 

well spend part of his time and strength in securing 
this result and cultivating a proper poise and repose 
of physical posture in the recitation. 

With regard to the manner of answering, questions 
may be 

(1) Individual, (2) Collective, or Simultaneous. 
The disadvantages of purely individual questioning are 
(a) It tends towards lack of attention by the rest of 
the class. When one pupil has been called to the wit- 
ness stand, the rest feel released from duty, tempo- 
rarily at least, and proceed to take a vacation, from 
which it may take some effort to call them back. 

(b) It thus happens that each pupil does not get 
the whole value of the recitation. 

The teacher must therefore adopt such a system in 
the matter of answering as will not allow the rest of the 
class to wholly relax attention when one member is 
called upon to talk. But the remedy for the dangers 
named is not to be found in a resort to collective 
questioning. 

Collective Questioning. — The disadvantages of col- 
lective questioning — questions "fired at the flock", as 
it were, are: 

(a) It prevents thoughtful answers. Those who 
answer at all are in haste to get in first, and so answer 
without deliberation and often at a mere venture. 

(b) It allows the laggards to escape. It not only 
leaves out of the game those who are slow by tempera- 
ment, but it affords the lazy and unprepared an oppor- 
tunity to slip through without real participation in the 
work of the recitation. 



176 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

(c) It tends to destroy mental independence and re- 
sponsibility. The pupil who answers rashly knows that 
others are doing the same. And often he is able to 
catch a cue from the first words of his neighbors. It 
thus happens that frequently the several members of 
the class do not really know what answer has been given 
or accepted, and it becomes necessary for the teacher to 
restate the answer on that account. The recitation, 
therefore, becomes more or less mechanical and 
irresponsible. 

The device of having the pupils raise their hands in 
token of their readiness to answer a collective question 
has attained a very general use in public schools. 
Almost anyone has seen, under such circumstances, a 
small sea of waving hands and writhing bodies, some 
standing, others leaning forward, in an apparent frenzy 
of eagerness to meet all demands; and yet no distinct 
or satisfactory answer to be had out of the whole class. 
Indeed, the most active contortionist was, perhaps, the 
least likely to offer any satisfactory answer — the worst 
"stabber" in the lot. 

Whether pupils should be allowed to raise hands and 
volunteer answers at all, without being individually 
designated, is at least a debatable question. But, if the 
practice be tolerated, it should be held within reasonable 
bounds and never allowed to degenerate into a mere gym- 
nastic exercise. At best, it is liable to result in the doing 
of the work, so far as it is done at all, by the brightest 
or nimblest of the class, to the damage of the slower 
or duller members. It is usually better that no rais- 
ing of hands should be allowed, until a definite signal 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 177 

from the teacher, as by the word, "Hands", indicates 
his readiness to hear volunteers. And the whole action 
should be kept within decorous restraint. In the mat- 
ter of reciting, "bodily exercise profiteth little". 

Concert Recitation. — Because the process of indi- 
vidual questioning is slow and subject to the disadvan- 
tages already pointed out, considerable popularity was 
attained at one time by the device known as concert 
recitation. It was found most feasible in reading 
classes and in the learning of arithmetical tables; but 
its use was also attempted in other studies. 

It is subject to all the disadvantages of collective ques- 
tioning and more. It is mechanical in the highest de- 
gree and not thought-provoking. Even in the Reading 
class where it would seem tolerable if anywhere, it tends 
to destroy all natural expression. In order to keep 
together, the pupils inevitably fall into a sort of arti- 
ficial rhythm both as to pauses and stress, and so subvert 
the real purpose of the Eeading lesson. And wherever 
memorized matter is required to be recited in concert, 
the work is really done by only a few. The rest stumble 
along, "touching the high places" only, but usually com- 
ing out strong on the last word of each sentence or 
stanza. Yet there are occasions, as in reviewing or 
drill exercises, where this form of recitation may be 
profitably used by the discreet teacher. 

The Reception of Answers. — Having discussed at 
some length the duties of the teacher as a questioner 
and the manner of the pupil in response, a closing word 
may be said on the manner of receiving answers to 



178 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

questions. It has been a popular dictum with writers 
on pedagogics that the pupil should always be required 
to answer in complete sentences. There is an impor- 
tant truth underlying this dogma. Pupils should not 
be allowed to answer in scrappy and incomplete ex- 
pressions, sentences lacking subject or predicate, mere 
tails and fins of sentences; but that they will surely 
do unless otherwise trained. And yet there are many 
cases in which to insist on complete, formal sentences 
would be mere pedantry. "In what year did Columbus 
discover America?" Shall we insist on the answer, 
"Columbus discovered America in 1492"? Or would 
that be a waste of time? But where a full sentence is 
needful to convey the proper response, there a full and 
correct sentence should be exacted. 

Shall all wrong answers be summarily rejected? By 
no means. If the answer is stupidly wrong through 
inattention to the question or through flippancy, it may 
properly be thrown back upon the pupil as an empty 
shell, not worth consideration. But most wrong- 
answers are not wholly wrong or senseless; and every 
indication of thought, or the honest attempt to think, 
should be hospitably received by the teacher. Thus, 
"Yes, you are partly right in that statement, but you 
go astray in some particulars; now what is your mis- 
take?" Met in this spirit, the pupil will almost surely 
be willing to make another attempt at straightening 
out his thought. If he is finally unable to do this, it 
will then be time to let some classmate undertake the 
job for him. Least of all, should the teacher plunge 
at once into a correction; though there are occasions 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 179 

when to an unsatisfactory answer or statement he may 
say, "No, try again", or even repeatedly "No" to a suc- 
cession of unsuccessful attempts or experiments on the 
part of the pupil. 

The Repeating of Pupils' Answers. — One of the 

most common and vicious of teachers' mistakes consists 
in the uniform and mechanical repetition of the pupil's 
answer, as a sort of echo. It is rather difficult to com- 
prehend why this pedagogical vice is so common. 
Teachers sometimes make the defence that they repeat 
the answer so that all the class may hear it; but it is 
the duty of the pupil to make the class hear him, and he 
should do the repeating if any is necessary. The teacher 
should not make himself a sounding-board to reflect 
back to the class the inaudible utterance of timid or 
lazy pupils. With many teachers, doubtless, the repeti- 
tion is merely a device to gain time while he thinks 
what to say next, like the "ers" and "ahs" of an un- 
trained speaker. In any case, it is so much clear pad- 
ding and dead waste of time, to say nothing of its silly 
interruption of the onward progress of thought in the 
recitation. 

The Assignment of the Lesson. — The disadvan- 
tages, or drawbacks, of text-book instruction have been 
briefly commented on in a previous chapter. The 
abstract and technical character of many of the terms 
used, the dead level of the types offering little assist- 
ance in determining the relative importance of the 
ideas presented, and often the lack of logical arrange- 
ment or organization of the subject matter make the 



180 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

way of the pupil hard. If he is also sent outside of 
the text-book for supplementary matter, the difficulty 
is increased; and he is likely to find in the recitation 
that his labor has been largely lost by misdirection or 
a failure to comprehend what was expected of him. 

It thus happens that the assignment of the lesson, the 
mapping out of the field of labor which it is desired 
that the pupil shall work becomes a very important part 
of the teacher's daily duty to his class. And yet this 
is, almost universally, the duty which is most weakly 
performed or most often shirked. It is a far too com- 
mon practice for the teacher to assign a stated amount 
of print, so many pages of the text, so many problems 
to be worked, so many lines to be translated. Or with 
younger pupils, as in a reading class, it may simply be, 
"Take the next lesson". 

Now it may be, in rare cases, that the text-book is 
so well organized, the matter so clearly divided, with 
such pertinent captions, that the assignment of work 
has already been fairly provided for by the author. 
But in such subjects, for instance, as history or liter- 
ature, no such easy measuring off of tasks will suffice. 
In such studies, the advance lesson should receive some 
analysis by the teacher in the assignment. The general 
purpose of the lesson should be indicated — what is to be 
got from it as a whole. Then the leading "points" 
should be singled out as matter for special attention. 
With a literature lesson, the setting of the poem or 
section assigned, how it came to be written, what value 
attaches to it historically, any facts which will tend to 
create a more vital interest on the part of the pupil in 



CLASS MANAGEMENT 181 

what he is asked to study, will be useful. In any case, 
the assignment should reveal to the pupil clearly just 
what he is expected to do. If he is required to look up 
supplementary matter in the library, he should be given 
definite references, and not be left to consume his time 
in fruitless rummaging for — he doesn't know exactly 
what. In fact, the teacher's preparation for the assign- 
ment should be as definite and thorough as that for 
the lesson in hand; and it should be given plenty of 
time, not left to the last half minute of the recitation 
or till the signal has already sounded for the close of 
the exercise. 



CHAPTER XVI 

EXAMINATIONS AND PROMOTION 

Not the least of the educator's problems is that of 
determining the results of his labors. The teacher 
needs to know what degree of success has rewarded 
his effort, whether progress towards the end sought, 
in each individual case, has been adequate or commensu- 
rate with effort and opportunity. How shall he come 
by this revelation? 

Those charged with the employment and supervision 
of teachers, and responsible for their retention, also 
greatly need some means of estimating and grading, in 
a wajr, the results of instruction, in other words, the 
educational efficiency of their teachers, individually and 
collectively. Is it possible, then, to apply any tests 
which will reliably indicate this efficiency? Do any 
means exist by which progress towards the true ends 
of education can be determined and registered ? 

The Criteria of Success. — At least three compre- 
hensive but distinct ends are sought in all true educa- 
tion, namely, the establishment of right habits, the 
acquisition of knowledge and thought power, and the 
adoption of high ideals. What we call character is the 
coalition of habit and ideals; but this is dependent, in 
a degree, upon knowledge and thinking. Habits are, of 

182 



EXAMINATIONS AND PROMOTION 183 

course, open to observation; but their formation is slow 
and difficult of measurement. Ideals are still more 
elusive and incapable of quantitative estimation. And 
so we seem thrown back, so far as any ready and tangible 
estimate is concerned, upon the field of knowledge 
and thought power; and here our effort to test results 
has been mainly applied. The conjoined necessity and 
difficulty of securing some tests of progress has, there- 
fore, led to the development of the examination system 
as we know it. 

Examinations. — The periodic written examination 
has obtained such a hold upon the American public 
school system that many teachers look upon it as a 
part of the order of nature and accept it without reflec- 
tion, notwithstanding the severe attacks upon it which 
have been made in various quarters in recent years. 

The Objections to Examinations. — The opposition 
to examinations has been largely copied from or inspired 
by the attitude of British writers, who have in mind a 
far more elaborate and pervasive system of examinations 
than has ever prevailed in this country. This British 
criticism was stimulated largely by a system, now abol- 
ished, known as "payment by results", under which 
the teacher's wages were dependent, in part, upon the 
proportion of pupils able to pass an examination by the 
iSTational Inspectors. The fact that examinations there 
are seldom conducted, as here, by the teachers them- 
selves, but by official examiners, greatly increased the 
objectionable features. The criticism really indigenous 
to our own country has been largely sentimental in its 



184 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

character, but is still entitled to thoughtful and candid 
consideration. The leading objections are (1) That the 
examination system induces cramming. 

What is meant by "cram"? If the term is applied 
to a review of the field to be covered by the examination, 
made with keen mental concentration under the pres- 
sure of a present motive, but with a view to better or- 
ganization of the subject matter and a clearer recogni- 
tion of relations and the relative importance of parts, 
then cram is a good thing. This sort of concentrated 
review must be placed to the credit of whatever system 
induces it. But if cram means only a cursory skim- 
ming over of the book-matter studied, with a view 
simply to a temporary and verbal retention thereof, 
then, of course, it is unmitigatedly bad. And the exam- 
ination should always be so formulated as to put no 
premium on that superficial sort of preparation. 

(2) That it necessarily involves an injurious strain 
on the nerves of pupils. This is a serious charge, and, 
in some cases, has a basis in fact. Here is where the 
wisdom of the examiner must be exhibited, firstly, in 
avoiding a preliminary state of over-anxiety and need- 
less alarm. The harm of examinations in this direction 
appears quite as much before as during the actual work. 
Secondly, the examination period should not be too 
long, varying with the age of the pupils; and the 
hygienic conditions of the room should be carefully 
looked after. Thirdly, the pupil's fate as to promo- 
tion should never be allowed to depend wholly on the 
results of the examination, even with adult pupils. 

A Further Objection to the Examination System. 

— The charge is also made that examinations give a 



EXAMINATIONS AND PKOMOTION 185 

wrong direction to work. This would quite possibly 
happen where, as in England, the examinations are con- 
ducted by outside officials. The teacher, under such 
a system, would very naturally shape his instruction 
to meet the known hobbies or idiosyncrasies of the 
examiner; his aim might become simply that of getting 
his pupils past the inspector, with little regard to the 
higher functions of the school. In our American sys- 
tem, the limitations on the teacher's freedom imposed 
by the course of study are not properly chargeable to 
examinations. Yet it is always to be remembered that 
examinations are only an auxiliary to instruction and 
not the end of instruction. 

The Purpose of Examinations. — Many teachers 
have acknowledged the force of the criticisms made, 
but have not, after all, found any acceptable substi- 
tute for the examination system. Let us, therefore, give 
a little time to the consideration of the real purpose 
and need of examinations. 

Examinations may be classified according to their 
purpose into two classes, selective and educative. With 
some examinations, the predominant purpose is that 
of selection, as in the case of civil service examinations 
and even teachers' examinations, the object being to 
determine qualifications to such a degree, at least, that 
the fittest may be chosen for appointment and the wholly 
unfit rejected. The same is true of all examinations 
for admission to any of the professions, as law or 
medicine. On the other hand, such examinations as 
are set by the great correspondence schools of the coun- 



186 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

try are not given to determine rank or rewards but 
rather to reveal to the examinee his own state of pro- 
ficiency. These are in their purpose educative rather 
than selective. 

The Nature of School Examinations. — What, now, 

about the ordinary school examinations ? It is clear that 
those held at the end of a year or term as a basis for 
promotion are primarily selective. Those pupils failing 
to reach the required standard are "selected" to do the 
work over again. The same is, in less degree, true of 
examinations held at the end of a subject, as geom- 
etry, to determine whether the pupil is prepared to 
leave, or "pass", the study. The fact, however, is 
somewhat different in the case of those partial examina- 
tions, or "tests", held from time to time during the 
progress of a study. While the results, or "standings", 
of these may contribute to the final determination of 
whether the pupil shall pass the subject or not, their 
chief value is of a different sort, a fact which teachers 
do not, as a rule, appreciate as fully as they ought. 
These examinations are really educative in the exhibit 
which they so impressively make of the pupil's present 
degree of mastery, or state of progress. If no record 
were made of these examinations, and the papers when 
marked were simply returned to the writers, their value 
would hardly be diminished. But a still better course 
than the simple return of the marked papers may be 
adopted, in which the return of the papers is made to 
occupy a whole recitation period, the best answers being 
read before the class, by the writers, while all typical or 



EXAMINATIONS AND PROMOTION 187 

egregious errors are brought up for discussion, so that 
each individual, and the class as a whole, may have a 
better understanding of the teacher's standards and 
their own deficiencies. 

The Educative Values of Written Examinations. 

— It may be asked, "What are the educative values of 
written examinations?" The question is not hard to 
answer. The written examination on which something 
depends is a stimulant; it furnishes efficient motive to 
compel 

(a) Concentration of mind and effort. The examinee 
gets promptly down to business; he doesn't dawdle or 
procrastinate. 

(b) It makes, or should make, a very cogent demand 
for accuracy of thought and statement; though it is to 
be feared that many teachers are too uncritical or too 
lenient in their estimate of muddled and incoherent 
answers. The pupil should learn, through "the disci- 
pline of consequences", that "any old thing" will not 
serve in the way of answer to questions. 

(c) It demands systematic thinking and the organ- 
ization of one's communicable knowledge. It trains the 
pupil to make choice between really relevant and irrele- 
vant items of knowledge. 

(d) It furnishes practical training in self-reliance, 
though this will depend somewhat on the watchfulness 
of the teacher and the external conditions of the exam- 
ination. The pupil should be made to feel that, now 
at least, he is shut up with himself, to stand or fall 
by his own ability. It is "up to him to make good", 



188 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

if one may utilize the vigorous colloquialism of the 
day. 

(e) It furnishes effective training in expression, .a 
practical discipline of the power to shape one's thought 
and put it concisely. There is really no more valuable 
exercise in composition than the written examination 
if properly conducted and properly utilized afterwards. 

Of course, this educative effect of examinations de- 
pends greatly on the insight and wisdom of the 
examiner; and it is clearly greatest in the case of the 
older pupils. The question of examinations for chil- 
dren below, say, the sixth grade is still far from a 
satisfactory settlement. 

It is probably true, with all that has been said, that, 
to many teachers, the chief function of examinations is 
governmental. The fear of failure to "pass" is held 
over pupils like 

"a hangman's whip 

To haud the wretch in order". 

And it is doubtless true that the modern examination 
system in schools is to be credited, in part, with the 
general abolition of the old penal system which relied 
on physical force for its incentives. Yet the teacher 
who sees nothing more in his examinations than a tonic 
to keep pupils more industrious has failed to realize 
their cultural possibilities. 

The Marking of Examination Papers. — Much dis- 
satisfaction has been felt in some quarters with the 
common custom of attempting to estimate the value 



EXAMINATIONS AND PROMOTION lg9 

of examination results in definite per cents; and some 
teachers prefer to use only general qualifying terms, 
as Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, using perhaps only the 
initial letters of those words. It may be questioned, 
however, whether this plan has any advantage over 
that of per cents. In the estimation of a series of 
answers, in the same paper, the law of averages helps 
greatly to correct inaccuracies of estimate. If one 
answer is rated too highly, it is quite probable that 
the next one will be somewhat underrated, and so on, 
the errors serving to cancel each other. 

To aid in the just marking of papers, the questions 
should first be evaluated; that is, if the questions are 
not of practically equal importance, their relative value 
should be estimated, in the scale of 100. In all cases, 
each answer should be marked separately, upon the 
paper, in its own allotted scale, and the results combined 
for the paper as a whole. The teacher should never 
flinch from placing his every estimate on record, on 
the face of the paper, so that it may be seen by the 
pupil or any one else entitled to an interest in the same. 

It should, however, be understood by all concerned 
that in the estimation of answers, outside of mathe- 
matics, there can be, in the nature of the case, no 
absolute accuracy of valuation; the per cents are only 
the best approximation which the examiner is able to 
make; and the words, "Good, Fair", etc., are nothing 
more. The fundamental thing is that there shall be, 
on the part of the examiner, a candid, conscientious 
effort at justice and accuracy. The caution should, per- 
haps, be added that with inexperienced teachers the 



190 SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 

error is likely to lie on the side of too great liberality 
in marking. This is a common fault with "practice 
teachers" in normal schools, for instance. This loose- 
ness in marking is, of course, due to a lack of critical 
power on the part of the young teacher ; his own knowl- 
edge of the subjects taught is not yet sufficiently clear 
and consolidated to enable him to discern readily the 
lapses and omissions of the pupil. It is possible, how- 
ever, that over-experienced teachers sometimes go to the 
opposite extreme. 

Promotions. — The graded system and the exami- 
nation system are sometimes confused, as if they were 
identical, and indeed they are, with us, closely related. 
The limitations imposed by the course of study belong 
to the system of grading and promotion of pupils. This 
employs examination only as a means or auxiliary. Bu't 
the question of frequency of promotion is an important 
and troublesome one. In the ordinary system of annual 
promotions much harm is done to exceptional pupils. 
Bright, capable children are often able to progress faster 
than the pace decreed by the course of study and so 
lose time, or even fall into sauntering habits of half- 
employment. Others find the pace of the course too 
fast, or are retarded by illness or accident, and so fail 
to meet the requirements for advancement. Such a 
pupil is "between the devil and the deep sea"; if he 
goes on to the next grade he will probably be unable to 
do the work and will soon be ruled out or wholly dis- 
heartened; if he, on the other hand, is compelled to 
spend a whole year in going over old but not well- 



EXAMINATIONS AND PROMOTION 191 

tilled ground he will, of a certainty, not work effectively 
or cheerfully. The work will all be to him "a sucked 
orange". 

Various remedies have been proposed for this diffi- 
culty, the simplest of these being the plan of semi- 
annual promotions, which, where practicable, greatly 
reduces the evil. Under that plan, it is much safer to 
"jump" a bright pupil over one grade altogether, and 
the pupil who is demoted does not suffer so great a 
loss of time in the doubling process. 

Other devices have been exploited, such as the Cam- 
bridge plan, the Elizabeth plan, and the Batavia 
system, but the scope of this discussion does not admit 
of their description here. That should be sought 
elsewhere. 



INDEX 



Abnormal conditions, of nose, 
etc., 54 ff. 
in the ear, 56-7. 
Adenoids, etc., 54-5. 
Air, difference between pure 
and impure, 41. 
humidity of, 42. 
proper rate of change of, 42. 
what vitiates, 34-5. 
Answering, proper forms of, 

173-6. 
Answers, reception of, 177-8. 

the repeating of pupils', 179. 
Approbation, love of, 109-10. 
Art of questioning, the, 167-8. 
Assignment of the lesson, the, 

179-81. 
Attentive power, limits of, 101. 

Blackboards, 23. 
Boarding place, the teacher 
and his, 82-3. 

Carbon dioxide, 35, 41. 
Character, and habit, 121. 

cultivated by school activ- 
ities, 131 ff. 

essential conditions of, 118. 

means of developing, 124 ff. 

of the teacher, 71-2. 
Chimney, 40. 
Choice, free, a condition of 

moral character, 123-4. 
Class management, 158 ff. 
Cleaning, periodical, 46. 

sweeping and, 45. 
Closets, outbuildings, etc., 47. 
Community, the teacher and 
the, 80-1. 



Concert recitation, 177. 
Contagious . diseases, 49 ff . 
Corporal punishment, 154-5. 
Country school program, 106. 
school-house, the, 18. 
schools, the grading of, 
104-5. 
Cram, kinds of, dangers of, 
184. 

Daily program, the, 99 ff. 
Decoration of schoolroom, 22, 
27. 

rules for, 28-9. 
Defects of hearing, 56-7. 

vision, 58. 
Deprivations as punishment, 

155-6. 
Desks and seats, 24. 

proper placing of, 25. 
Disciplinarian, the good, 68-9. 
Discipline, of consequences, 153. 

school, as related to moral 
training, 132 ff. 
Diseases, contagious, 49 ff. 
Drinking water, 44. 
Dusting, 45-6. 

Ear, abnormal conditions in, 
56-7. 

Encouragement as an incentive 
to study, 110. 

Equipment of schoolroom, 22- 
25. 

Erasers, 24. 

Essential elements of a school, 
12. 

Examination papers, the mark- 
ing of, 188-9. 



193 



194 



INDEX 



Examinations and promotions, 
182 ff. 
as criteria of success, 182. 
educative value of, 187-8. 
nature of school, 186. 
the objections to, 183-5. 
purpose of, 185. 
Example of the teacher, 71-2. 
Exclusion of pupils having con- 
tagious diseases, 49 ff. 
Expulsion, suspension and, 

156-7. 
Eye-sight, see vision. 

First day of school, 93 C 
Forming of the will, 122-4. 

Gamut of school incentives, 

107 ff. 
Grading of country schools, 

104-5. 
Habit, character and, 121. 

training, 121-2. 
Harris, Dr. Wm. T., 132. 
Hearing, defects of, 56-7. 

directions for testing, 57. 
Heating, 30. 

systems, 31-2. 
Heat regulation, 32. 
Humidity of . school atmos- 
phere, 42. 
Hygiene of sense organs, 54 ff. 

Ideals, creation of, 119. 
Incentives to study, 107 ff. 

gamut of, 107 ff. 
Industry as a school virtue, 

139. 
Inspection, medical, 52. 
Instruction, forms of, 160. 

Jacketed stove, the, 39. 
Judgment moral, cultivation of, 

120. 
Justice as a school virtue, 

137-8. 

Kindness as a school virtue, 
138. 



Knowledge, love of, 115. 

Law, the teacher and the, 74-5. 
Leading questions, 172. 
Lesson, the assignment of, 

179-81. 
Library, the school, 26. 
Lighting, of schoolroom, 20. 
Love of approbation, 109-10. 

of knowledge, 115. 

of superiority, 111-12. 

Marking of examination papers, 

188-9. 
Medical inspection of schools, 

52. 
Methods of moral training, 

124 ff. 
Moral instruction, direct, 128-9. 
indirect, 126-7. 
judgment, cultivation of, 

120. 
training, 118 ff. 
conditions of success in, 

142-3. 
methods of, 124 ff. 
of the playground, 143-4. 
problem of, 118. 
through school discipline, 
132 ff. 
Mouth-breathers, 55. 
Movement of classes, 159. 

Nose, abnormal conditions of, 
54 ff. 

Obedience as a school virtue, 
140. 
true, 141. 
Opening day, the, 94-5. 
Oral teaching, 160 ff. 
Outbuildings, 17, 47. 

Pain, mental, fear of, 108-9. 

physical, dread of, 108. 
Parents, correlative rights of 

teacher and, 75-7. 
Parent, the teacher and the, 

75, 77. 



INDEX 



195 



Parents, what they delegate to 

the school, 11, 76. 
Physical environment of the 

school, 14. 
Pictures, in schoolroom, 27-8. 
Playground, the moral training 

of the, 143-4. 
Preparation, daily of the 

teacher, 86-7. 
Principal, teachers and the, 79. 
Professional spirit and con- 
tact, 88-9. 
Program for country schools, 
sample, 106. 
for study, need of, 101-2. 
guiding principles for, 103-4. 
pupil's right to a, 101. 
the making of the, 102-3. 
what need of, 99, 100. 
Promotions, 190-1. 
Punctuality as a school virtue, 

133. 
Punishment as a deterrent, 
148-9. 
characteristics of, 151 ff. 
ends of, 147 ff. 
forms of, 154 ff . 
reformation as an end in, 
149. 
Punishment, to express con- 
demnatory judgment, 150. 
Punishments, rules and, 145 ff. 
Pupil's answers, the repetition 
of, 179. m 
response in the recitation, 
173-4. 

Question, what constitutes a 

good, 170-1. 
Questioning, collective, 175-6. 

defective forms of, 171. 

instructive, 169. 

kinds of, 168. 

Socratic, 168-9. 

the art of, 167-8. 
Questions, book, 173. 

leading, 172. 

Eecitation, concert, 177. 



Eecitation, the objects of the, 

165. 

the teacher's part in, 165-6. 

the pupil 's response in, 173-4. 

Eecitations, length of, 101, 103. 

order of, 103-4. 
Eecitation as an end in pun- 
ishment, 149. 
Eeligious education and char- 
acter, 130. 
Eepeating of pupils' answers, 

the, 179. 
Eeproof and personal criticism, 

157-8. 
Eetribution as an end in pun- 
ishment, 147-8. 
Eivalry as an incentive to 

study, 112. 
Eules and punishments, 145 ff. 
for decoration of school- 
room, 28-9. 
for prevention of contagion, 

49, 50, 52. 
for testing eyesight, 61-2. 
for testing hearing, 57. 
should be few, 146-7. 

Sanitation, general, 44. 
School activities, power to 
make character, 131 ff. 

architecture, 18. 

board, teacher and the, 78. 

discipline as related to moral 
training, 132 ff. 

essential elements of a, 12. 

first day of, 93 ff. 

-house, the, 18. 

-house, the country, 18. 

incentives, gamut of, 107 ff. 

management, what is? 12. 

management, why study? 9. 

-room, the, 19. 

-room, equipment and deco- 
ration of, 22, 26 ff. 

site, the, 14. 

improvement of the, 15. 

a model country, 17. 

virtues, the, 133 ff. 

what is a? 10. 



196 



INDEX 



School, what parents delegate 

to a, 11. 
Schools, grading of country, 
104-5. 
medical inspection of, 52. 
visiting, 89. 
Seats, desks and, 24. 
Sense defects, testing for, 57. 

organs, hygiene of, 54 ff. 
Shades, window, 21. 
Silence, the basis for reflection, 

etc., 134-5. 
Site, a model country school, 
17. 
the school, 14-16. 
Stove, the jacketed, 39, 40. 
Study, incentives to, 107 ff. 
program, need of, 101-2. 
Sunday, the teachers', 90-1. 
Superintendent, the teacher and 

the, 79. 
Suspension and expulsion, 

156-7. 
Sweeping and cleaning, 45. 

Teacher, the, 64 ff. 

and his boarding place, 82-3. 
and his daily preparation, 

86-7. 
and his self -culture, 87-8. 
and his Sunday, 90-1. 
and his time, 85 ff. 
and his vacations, 91-2. 
and professional contact, 

88-9. 
and the community, 80-2. 
and the law, 74-5. 
and the school board, 78. 
and the superintendent, 79. 
correlative rights of parent 

and, 75, 76, 77. 



duty with respect to sense 

defects, 60. 
essential characteristics of, 

64 ff. 
in his relations, 74 ff . 
personal character of, 71. 
personal example of, 71-2. 
Teacher's part in the recita- 
tion, 165-6. 
Testing for sense defects, 57. 
Text-book teaching, advan- 
tages and disadvantages, 
162-4. 
Time, the teacher and his, 85 ff . 
Truthfulness, a school virtue, 
136-7. 

Vacations, the teacher's, 91-2. 
Ventilation, effects of bad, 36. 

means of, 36 ff . 

proper amount of, 41. 

what it is, 32-3. 

why it costs, 33. 

why important, 33-4. 
Virtues cultivated by school 

activities, 132 ff. 
Vision, defects of, 58 ff . 

inequality of, 59. 

rules for testing, 61-2. 
Visitation of schools, 89-90. 
Vitiation of air, 34-5. 

"Walls, of schoolroom, 22, 27. 
"Water closets, etc., 17. 

drinking, 26, 44. 
"Why study School Manage- 
ment? 9. 
Will, the forming of the, 122-4. 
"Windows, position of, 20. 
Window shades, 21. 

space, amount of, 21. 

ventilation, 36. 



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